On February 4 , 2017, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, singer Ozzy Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler took the stage for one last sold-out show together in their hometown of Birmingham, England.
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For those unable to attend the band’s grand finale, the performance was captured for posterity by Dick Carruthers, the director behind classic concert films like Led Zeppelin: Celebration Day and The Who Live at the Royal Albert Hall. Titled The End, the DVD / Blu-ray documents the entire show, plus offers fabulously intimate studio performances of material not featured on the tour.
Guitar World columnist Brad Tolinski recently spoke with Tony Iommi about The End, an excerpt follows.
Did you take any special care to choose the final setlist?
“We knew we wanted to play the classics, so we didn’t really play anything off the final album, 13. I would’ve liked to have played some of the songs that we haven’t performed for many years like ‘Hole In The Sky’ or ‘Symptom Of The Universe’, but we could only do songs that Ozzy could still sing. That’s no disrespect to him. When we recorded those songs originally 30 years ago, the keys were so high there was no chance in hell that he could still hit those notes. But it would’ve been nice to have had them in the set.”
Did you consider detuning your guitar so it would make it easier for him to hit the notes?
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“Because I detune already, the strings would’ve been too low, like rubber bands. We detuned with Ronnie James Dio on the last two tours we did with him, but that was just a semi-tone. But let me be clear, nobody was upset with Ozzy. It’s impossible for anyone his age to sing like they did as a kid.”
On the live concert film, you perform a medley of greatest guitar riffs like “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” and “Supernaut”. Was that an opportunity to sneak in a few songs that Ozzy couldn’t sing, but the fans wanted to hear?
“Absolutely. And we wanted to play ’em! So, we figured we do them as an instrumental even if we couldn’t play the whole song. It seemed like a good compromise.”
To read the complete interview, visit this location.