From the saga of buying a ticket the night before to that final Mama, I’m Coming Home, a firsthand account of Back to the Beginning in Birmingham
Cover photo: Ross Halfin.
I was at Villa Park in Birmingham on July 5, 2025, watching Ozzy and Black Sabbath say goodbye to the stage. Nobody there knew that, seventeen days later, Ozzy would be saying goodbye to life. To this day, I consider it the best show of my life, and I want to tell you the story of how I managed to be there, because it was quite a saga.
The ticket saga
Tickets went on sale in February 2025, with an online queue of more than 150,000 people. And I couldn’t get one in any of the sales. Whenever I managed to get onto the site, the tickets available were beyond my budget. I had just moved to England and money was really tight, so if I was going to go, it had to be the cheapest ticket, which was already pretty expensive: around £200. To give you an idea, the average gig here costs a little over a hundred, £120, £150. Raising prices is becoming a trend now, but that’s the average. And the cheapest ticket for Back to the Beginning was £200. Premium standing was over £400, completely out of my reach. Sometimes I couldn’t even get onto the site, and whenever I did and there were tickets, they were never the cheapest ones. Every new sale, every new batch, I tried and failed. Ticketmaster has never humiliated me more than it did then, seriously.
And I was desperate, because I lived in Leicester, which is about 40, 45 minutes from Birmingham. I was right next door. And I had this really strong feeling that I couldn’t miss this show for anything in the world. When that final promotional photo came out with everyone together and I saw Steven Tyler, that was it: I decided I was going to Birmingham no matter what. Even if it meant trying to buy a ticket outside Aston Villa’s stadium, or at least trying to find Steven Tyler around there.
And I managed to buy one in the final minute—actually, it was already extra time. I got my ticket the night before, at 10 p.m., in the section I could afford. And the show started the next day at 11 a.m. But there was one catch: there were no trains to Birmingham the next day. For some reason, the trains weren’t running. They put on replacement buses, and those buses stopped at every town along the way. A 45-minute journey took almost 3 hours. By the time I finally got in, Mastodon and Rival Sons, who opened the event, had already played. I missed both bands and took my seat with Anthrax playing.
The best cover of the day
And I’ve been saying this since the day of the show: for me, the best Black Sabbath or Ozzy cover was Perry Mason by Halestorm. Lzzy Hale was the only female vocalist fronting a band at the event, and her version was incredible. Sure, it was Yungblud’s version of Changes that won the Grammy, but I thought then, and still think now, that the best cover was Perry Mason by Halestorm.
The supergroups, Nuno and Steven Tyler
Then came Lamb of God, with Children of the Grave, followed by the first supergroup performance, what they called supergroup A, with Tom Morello leading a rotating cast of musicians. That was when Yungblud sang Changes, the performance that changed his life. This supergroup also featured David Draiman from Disturbed, who was heavily booed when he came onstage because of that incident where he signed an Israeli army missile. And that was when I saw Nuno Bettencourt onstage. I didn’t know he was going to play, and when I saw him, I was stunned. I had never seen Nuno live. And it’s funny how things work out, isn’t it? There’s such a variety of gigs here, and since then I’ve seen Extreme three times. Anyone who follows me knows I adore Nuno, so seeing him there was a shock, and he even played in both supergroups, with a whole bunch of people.
Then there was Alice in Chains, who played Fairies Wear Boots, then Gojira, and then a drum battle with Travis Barker from Blink, Chad Smith and Danny Carey from Tool. And the funniest thing was that both Danny and Chad were watching Travis play in amazement, because he really is a beast. I think he’s disproportionately good compared with the level of the band he plays in. Sorry to the fans, I’m not that into Blink, but musically speaking, the band isn’t on Travis’s level.
And then came supergroup B, which was the highlight of the day for me, apart from Black Sabbath’s and Ozzy’s performances. There was Billy Corgan, K.K. Downing from Judas Priest, Sammy Hagar, Tobias Forge, who appeared as Papa V Perpetua, and Steven Tyler, with Ronnie Wood onstage alongside him. And an interesting detail: Steven Tyler was the only artist who didn’t sing anything from the Black Sabbath or Ozzy catalogue. He sang Train Kept A-Rollin’, Walk This Way and Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love. I don’t know why he made that choice, but he was the only one. And it was the big moment of the day for me. I cried like a little kid.
And speaking of Yungblud and Steven Tyler, now that I think about it, it’s curious, isn’t it? Aerosmith have just returned to the stage with two celebratory shows at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, packed with guests, including people who were at Back to the Beginning, like Nuno, Sammy Hagar, Tom Morello and Chad Smith. And Yungblud, who even recorded with Aerosmith after that, wasn’t among the announced guests.
From Pantera to Metallica
Next came Pantera, a band I stopped listening to, but the performance of Walk was really cool to see, because the crowd was going wild. Then there was Tool, and I confess I barely remember their set. That was probably when I went out to get something to eat. Then Slayer, who were iconic, followed by Guns N’ Roses, with a performance of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath that, for me, was dismal with Axl singing. And Metallica were flawless, as always. There isn’t much to say about Metallica onstage.
Ozzy, Sabbath and the farewell
And then came Ozzy, with his solo set, followed by Black Sabbath with the original lineup and the four songs they played: War Pigs, N.I.B., Iron Man and Paranoid, which closed the show. It’s absolutely unreal seeing the four of them playing together. I had seen Ozzy before and Black Sabbath twice, but both times without Bill Ward. So what a moment it was to witness that.
And we didn’t even know yet what had happened beforehand. Ozzy had been hospitalised about two weeks before the show with sepsis and pneumonia. How did he survive, man, with his health the way it was, and still get onstage to say goodbye? Sharon said afterwards that he wanted to say goodbye and have the chance to thank his fans. She says he chose how he would go, and that’s how it happened. Few people get the chance to say goodbye to life that way.
And I remember that when he sang Mama, I’m Coming Home, with everyone already crying their eyes out, the guy next to me turned to me and said: he’s really saying goodbye, isn’t he? And I think that was a feeling we all shared there, that he really was close to saying goodbye to life. So much so that, on the day he died, I wasn’t shocked. I was very sad, like everyone else, but it wasn’t a shock, because it really did feel like he was leaving us.
His voice wasn’t clean, it wasn’t clear like in the old days. And honestly, who gives a fuck, right, everyone? Nobody was there to see Ozzy singing at the peak of his powers. This was a legend saying goodbye to the stage, and we didn’t even know he was saying goodbye to life.
The last generation
A band that created a genre returning with its original lineup to where it all began, in Aston, in Birmingham, and coming full circle. Saying goodbye as a band the way they did. I think it’s the first time this has happened at an event of this magnitude, and it will probably be the only time. It’s been more than a year now, and when I remember the experience of being there, I still consider it probably the best show of my life. I was part of it, I witnessed history being made there in Birmingham in July 2025.
And you know what’s even crazier? Right after Back to the Beginning, before Ozzy died, I was talking to a friend and told her: we’re the last generation that will get the chance to see these music legends playing live. The guys who created all this, who made the soundtrack to our lives, won’t be here forever. And a few days later, Ozzy was gone. That hit me really hard. So if there’s a show you’ve been waiting for, a band you’ve always wanted to see, an idol you’ve never seen live, don’t put it off. Save the money, buy the ticket and go. Because there might not be a next time. And I’m certain you’ll never regret going. What you’ll regret is not going.
