This. Is. The End (probably)
A thought struck MV on Thursday on the first of these two shows: if it wasnt for Black Sabbath I’d go to about half the gigs I do.
Since they formed in 1968, about 10 miles from where they bring the curtain down here tonight, every heavy metal band owes them a debt. Every single outfit that ever wrote a riff probably wrote one that sounded a bit like Tony Iommi (but probably wasn’t as good) and every single one has a bass player that wants to be Geezer Butler, a drummer that wants to be Bill Ward and a singer like Ozzy.
No one ever came close to sounding like them, though and no one ever will.
Which is why tonight is so, so special. The End for Black Sabbath is mainstream enough to make Radio 4 yesterday tea time (they called them the most influential band that you didn’t know a song of or somesuch nonsense) but it doesn’t matter what the wider world thinks. Black Sabbath mattered more than anything else in the world for close on two hours in here tonight in their hometown in front of 12,000 of their disciples.
Ostensibly, this was a conventional gig and as an arena rock show it had everything. Flames coming out of the speakers, confetti covering everywhere in “Paranoid” at the end, hundreds of balloons dropping from the sky in “Children Of The Grave”, and a light show that would put just about anybody else to shame were all here.
But anyone who thinks that tonight was just an arena rock show doesn’t understand the significance of what we saw. We saw some of the greatest songs ever written – everything from the genuinely creepy eponymous opener to the aforementioned one that goes “finished with my woman…..” was somewhere between transcendent and magical. “Fairies Wear Boots”, “War Pigs”, “Into The Void” and all the others? Beat them if you can.
You can’t. That’s why Black Sabbath exist.
But it was about way, way more than that. It was a celebration. An emotional experience. A night to say you were there as possibly the greatest ever said farewell.
Which is why it doesn’t feel right to review this in any normal sense. How dare anyone question this feeling that exists throughout? How dare anyone presume to have the words to illuminate what Black Sabbath did here? How can you describe Iommi’s playing on “Dirty Women”? The answer is it’s impossible.
If you wanted to quibble you could maybe talk about the ones they didn’t play, you could perhaps – and this was a shame – opine that Bill Ward wasn’t here to share it too, but then Tommy Clufetos gets to play his solo and he belongs.
Then there’s Ozzy, yes he can’t sing like he used to maybe, but he’s spot on tonight, he’s unique, a mischievous schoolkid still and he is incredible too.
So as the dust settles, the confetti is swept away and we begin to actually realise the significance of what happened here tonight, we can say this: MV wasn’t there at the start of Sabbath, we weren’t there in the middle, but you know what? We were there at The End.
Purely and simply amazing on every single level you can find. This was one of the greatest nights of metal you will ever see.
Black Sabbath: thank you and goodbye.
