Watch Black Sabbath play previous “final shows” in 1992, 1999 and 2017
Black Sabbath announced their final show this week, but the metal legends have bid farewell multiple times in the past too – see footage and setlists from their previous “final shows” below.
On Wednesday (February 5), the band announced they would be reuniting with their original line-up of vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward one last time this summer.
The all-day show will go down at Villa Park in Birmingham on July 5, with a stellar supporting line-up that includes the likes of Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Gojira, Smashing Pumpkins‘ Billy Corgan, Slash and Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses, Alice In Chains, members of Limp Bizkit and KoRn, as well as Rage Against The Machine‘s Tom Morello (who also acts of musical director of the concert).
Tickets go on sale next Friday (February 14) at 10am GMT, and all profits will go to charities Cure Parkinson’s, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Acorn Children’s Hospice – a Children’s Hospice supported by Aston Villa. Visit here for tickets.
While it is very likely that this will truly be the final Sabbath show, it is not the first time they have bid farewell to playing live together.
Their first farewell came on November 15, 1992 in the Pacific Amphitheater in Costa Mesa, California on the final night of Osbourne’s solo tour, dubbed ‘No More Tours’. That had been due to be Ozzy’s last ever live performance and for the encore, Iommi, Butler and Ward joined him for the first time since Live Aid in 1985.
They played four tracks together – ‘Black Sabbath’, ‘Fairies Wear Boots’, ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Paranoid’ – although Osbourne’s retirement proved to be short-lived as he played the ‘Retirement Sucks’ tour in 1995. Listen to the ‘92 reunion here:
The core line-up would find themselves on the road again by 1997 for a two-year run, culminating in a blowoff show in their Birmingham hometown in the NEC Arena. Dubbed the ‘Last Supper’, their set on December 22, 1999 was supposed to be their last hurrah – see the band discuss that set along with footage of ‘Black Sabbath’ below.
At the ‘99 farewell show, Sabbath played:
‘War Pigs’
‘N.I.B.’
‘Fairies Wear Boots’
‘After Forever’
‘Electric Funeral’
‘Sweet Leaf’
‘Into The Void’
‘Guitar Solo’
‘Snowblind’
‘Dirty Women’
‘Black Sabbath’
‘Iron Man’
‘Embryo’
‘Children Of The Grave’
‘Paranoid’
Despite saying they would not play together again, they did in fact get back together within a year and continued to play sporadically throughout the 2000s.
A reunion tour of the original line-up was due to take place in 2011, but Ward dropped out after he was told that another drummer would be on stage alongside him. They carried on without Ward, with Ozzy’s solo band drummer Tommy Clufetos filling in.
A “final farewell” came at the end of a worldwide tour in Birmingham’s Genting Arena on February 4, 2017, which was captured in the film Black Sabbath: The End Of The End. See excerpts here:
Sabbath’s setlist on February 4, 2017:
‘Black Sabbath’
‘Fairies Wear Boots’
‘Under The Sun/Every Day Comes And Goes’
‘After Forever’
‘Into The Void’
‘Snowblind’
‘War Pigs’
‘Behind The Wall Of Sleep’
‘N.I.B.’
‘Hand Of Doom’
‘Supernaut’/Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’/’Megalomania’
‘Rat Salad’
‘Iron Man’
‘Dirty Women’
‘Children Of The Grave’
‘Paranoid’
To this day, that set marks the last time Sabbath played together, albeit without Ward.
Rumours about the possibility of a one-off reunion show from the metal veterans have been swirling in recent years. In 2024, for instance, Osbourne shared that he would “jump at the chance” to play a final Black Sabbath show with Ward, and Butler hinted that he and Osbourne had “agreed” to play one last gig.
Around that same time, Osbourne’s wife and manager Sharon said that he was planning “two more shows to say goodbye” before he fully retires.
After the announcement of this summer’s ‘Back To The Beginning’ show, NME spoke to Sharon, who said: “You can’t say goodbye. Look at what they leave – it’s a huge, great body of work that they’ve left for the world. As long as you’ve got that, it’s never goodbye. It’s there for eternity.”
She admitted that husband Ozzy was currently feeling “very emotional” about the final show, and that it is “what he wants”.
“He wants to say thank you to everybody. He didn’t have that chance because of his illness, but now he does have the chance.”
The post Watch Black Sabbath play previous “final shows” in 1992, 1999 and 2017 appeared first on NME.
Max Pilley
NME
