Attendees at press night for the Black Sabbath Ballet got a big surprise this week, when none other than Sabbath guitarist and heavy metal godfather Tony Iommi turned up for a surprise performance.
NME reports that on Wednesday, Oct. 22, Iommi made an unexpected appearance at the end of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s performance of Black Sabbath – The Ballet at Sadler’s Wells in London to play his iconic guitar solo from the song “Paranoid.” The performance was part of the evening’s closing number, which you can see below.
The new ballet — which Iommi helped create — comes months after Black Sabbath played their last concert ever. On July 5, Fans ascended on Villa Park, Birmingham, for the band’s final show, dubbed the Back To The Beginning festival, which has been called “the greatest heavy metal show ever.”
The concert wasn’t done to make a profit, and all of the participating artists — including Metallica, Slayer, and Pantera — did so for free. Metal Sucks noted that, while raising almost $200 million for charity from the event is a major accomplishment, the eye-opening part really is that the math works out to mean that the livestream generated upwards of $150 million, at $30 a ticket.
Billboard later confirmed that the event raised over $190 million, surpassing Live Aid (1985), FireAid (2025), and Hope for Haiti Now (2010) by a lot. Notably, all proceeds from Back to the Beginning will be distributed between three worthy causes: Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Acorn Children’s Hospice, and Cure Parkinson’s.
Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne died just weeks after the Back to the Beginning concert
The Back To The Beginning concert was the absolute last time that Ozzy Osbourne and the original lineup of Black Sabbath performed together live, as Ozzy passed away just weeks later, on Tuesday at the age of 76.
In a statement shared to Sky News, the Osbourne family said: “It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love.” In a post on Instagram, the family shared the same statement and added: “We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time,” signed, “Sharon, Jack, Kelly, Aimee and Louis.”
Ozzy had been living with Parkinson’s and faced multiple health issues over the last several years. His cause of death was ultimately ruled as being due to acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Coronary artery disease and Parkinson’s disease with autonomic dysfunction are listed as associated factors.
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