They came by the thousands.
They dressed in black, with T-shirts featuring crucifixes, dragons and demons.
They gathered on Saturday in Birmingham, England, to pay their respects to a figure of almost religious significance in the heavy metal world: Ozzy Osbourne, the Prince of Darkness.
Since Osbourne and his bandmates Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Geezer Butler, formed Black Sabbath in Birmingham in 1968, they have been regarded as the fathers of heavy metal.
On Saturday, Osbourne, 76, was at the center of “Back to the Beginning,” a 10-hour concert at the Villa Park soccer stadium that he had said would culminate in Black Sabbath’s final stage appearance.
This was not his first announcement of a retirement from touring or live performance, but this time, he seems to have meant it. In recent years, the singer has had a string of health issues, including Parkinson’s disease. He told a radio station in February that he could no longer walk. Many fans at the sold-out show on Saturday said they would be happy if he just made it onstage, even if he didn’t sing.
So when, at about 9 p.m., Osbourne appeared rising up from beneath the stage, sitting on a black throne topped with an ornamental bat and accented by a pair shiny skulls, one on each armrest, the crowd roared.
“Are you ready?” Osbourne shouted, then tore into a set of five songs he had released as a solo artist, including his 1980 debut single, “Crazy Train.”
As he performed, Osbourne goaded the crowd, making silly faces and gesturing for the audience to clap to the beat. At one point, he activated a water gun next to his throne, and soaked the first few rows of fans.
The crowd’s response to the music and antics was joyful, and Osbourne seemed overwhelmed after so long out of the spotlight. “I’ve been laid up for six years,” he said: “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
The solo performance was just an appetizer before a full-scale Black Sabbath reunion, which capped a whole day of tributes from some of the most famous names in hard rock. Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, Slayer and others all paid tribute to Black Sabbath and worked covers of the band’s hits into their sets. From afternoon until night, the crowd threw devil horns, moshing and headbanging.
In the days leading up to the gig, Osbourne’s fans had crisscrossed Birmingham to take photos in front of sights associated with the singer, including his childhood home.
Osbourne, who comes from a working-class family and once labored in a slaughterhouse, grew up in tiny rowhouse just a few minutes’ walk from the stadium.
On Saturday morning, as fans posed for selfies outside the house’s front door, its current occupant, Nazish Mahfooz, 32, arrived home carrying bags of groceries. Mahfooz, a transport worker, said that her family had told her to charge fans for photos, or at least offer them the chance to give her 20 British pounds (about $27) to walk through the building. But she couldn’t be bothered, Mahfooz said.
Instead, she hung an Osbourne T-shirt in a downstairs window to add something to the visitors’ photos. “You have this stereotype of rock fans as not nice,” Mahfooz said, “but, honestly, it’s been really good.”
In interviews around the stadium, fans said they had traveled from Argentina, Canada, Denmark, India, the United Arab Emirates and the United States for the concert — and some had maxed out their credit cards to be there.
Kelly Clark, 56, a photographer from Nova Scotia, Canada, said that Osbourne’s music had been the soundtrack to her life. Though she had seen him many times before, this trip had special significance, she said, because she planned to spread some of the ashes of her Osbourne-loving goddaughter in the stadium. Clark said her goddaughter had died in a car accident in 2023, but she would have wanted to be at the show.
Nearby, Rigmor Nikander, a heavily pregnant wedding planner from Copenhagen stood with her hands clasped to her belly. A few years ago, her fiancé introduced her to Black Sabbath, she said, and now she is hooked. “If it’s a boy, we’ll call him Ozzy,” Nikander said.
Not all the fans had come from far afield. Tash Patel, 55, a graphic designer, said he had grown up near the stadium and first saw Osbourne in the late 1970s, when the singer walked into his father’s convenience store, “stark bollock naked,” looking to buy some alcohol. “It was a time when Ozzy was off his face a lot on drink and drugs,” Patel said.
Patel said he was trying not to drink too much himself on Saturday so that he would remember the concert. But it was a party, after all. “I’ve already had five pints. I’m trying to pace myself,” he said.
And it was more of a marathon than a sprint. The first band, Mastodon, came on at 1 p.m. Several hours later, there was a drum battle featuring members of Blink 182, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tool. The acts were interspersed with video messages from a surprising range of celebrities, including Dolly Parton and Elton John.
It was not until about 10 p.m. that huge screens at the front of the stadium began showing clips of Black Sabbath performing in its prime.
Then, from behind a sign onstage reading “Back to the Beginning,” the band’s original members suddenly appeared, together for the first time since 2005, with Osbourne sitting once again on his bat throne. The group launched into “War Pigs,” a doomy antiwar anthem from 1970. “Generals gathered in their masses,” Osbourne wailed: “Just like witches at black masses.” The crowd, 45,000 strong, wailed along.
The band played a short four-song set, ending with a rapid rendition of “Paranoid.” “God bless you all!,” Osbourne shouted. Then, as fireworks exploded overhead, and the stage rotated to take Osbourne out of view, the emotional crowd chanted his name: “Oz-zy! Oz-zy! Oz-zy!”
Alex Marshall is a Times reporter covering European culture. He is based in London.
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