Tony Iommi talked about Black Sabbath’s final tour and how the selist was created for the band’s last string of live shows, explaining to Guitar World:
“We knew we wanted to play the classics, so we didn’t really play anything off the final album, ’13.’
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“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?
“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.”
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It kinda makes you glad to be a guitar player! Are there any songs you are going to miss playing with Sabbath?
“That was certainly going through my mind during the last show. I was thinking, I’ve been playing most of these songs since Day One, and, you know, bloody hell, this will be the last time that I’m going to be playing these songs with these guys! It was strange to look at it like that. It really hit me, especially when I was playing the solo to ‘Dirty Women,’ that I probably wouldn’t have the opportunity to play it that way ever again.”