Ozzy Osbourne at Bridgestone Arena, 2/16/2011
Tributes continue to pour in following the news that Ozzy Osbourne, whose work with Black Sabbath and whose lengthy solo career defined the archetype of a heavy metal frontman, departed this mortal coil at age 76 on Tuesday. A little more than two weeks before his death, Osbourne gave his final public performance during Back to the Beginning, a black-heartwarming marathon show in his hometown of Birmingham, U.K., that included a solo set, a reunion of the original lineup of Black Sabbath and heaps of special guests.
Whether or not you made the pilgrimage to that gig, there’s a decent chance Nashville music fans have attended an Ozzfest or two, or perhaps caught one of several of The Prince of Darkness’s solo tours that stopped in town, such as his 2011 show at Bridgestone Arena with support from Slash. Tons of Nashville musicians across a huge variety of scenes have posted on social media about the influence of Osbourne in particular and Sabbath in general. Sabbath also made its way to Music City a couple of times during its original run in the 1970s, and there are audience recordings you can check out of both gigs.
The tour for Vol. 4 was supposed to come through in August 1972, but the show was canceled. The band finally made their Nashville debut at Municipal Auditorium on Feb. 9, 1977. The tour came in the wake of the critically panned Technical Ecstasy, but the set is heavy on the classics, and there’s a ferocious jam seguing “Electric Funeral” into “N.I.B.”
Sabbath came back in November 1978, but famously had to mulligan. Osbourne went AWOL ahead of the original date on Nov. 9 and the band had to call off their performance, but not before opening act Van Halen got to blow some minds of young Nashvillians hearing them for the first time. The makeup Sabbath show on Nov. 12 — incorrectly labeled on some bootleg CD-Rs as Nov. 19 — was also recorded by someone in the crowd, though the closing performance of “Paranoid” is missing. Two months earlier, the band released Never Say Die!, its last album before tensions came to a head and Ronnie James Dio replaced Osbourne on vocals, but the set is very similar to the show from ’77.
Neither recording is super high-fidelity, but they offer a little peek into an earlier time — and, if you were there, perhaps the trip down memory lane you needed today.
