Black Sabbath's legendary bassist Geezer Butler has opened up about the band's final performance with Ozzy Osbourne, describing the emotionally charged reunion at Villa Park as both heartbreaking and unforgettable.
Speaking on the latest episode of Gabbing With Girlfriends — a podcast hosted by his wife and manager Gloria Butler — Geezer reflected on the band's last-ever performance at the Back To The Beginning concert in Birmingham this July, just 17 days before Ozzy's passing.
"I suppose I was just wondering how everybody would do. I knew Ozzy wasn't in the best of health. I knew Bill hadn't been well for a while. Tony was up for it, and I was up for it as long as everybody else was. And I said 'yeah' straight away, 'I'll do it.' Especially as it was at Villa Park, [the home stadium of] my football team and one of the earliest places I ever went to and I was a little child."
The event was the first time Butler had been in contact with some of his bandmates in nearly a decade. A fallout between Gloria and Sharon Osbourne meant communication had dried up between the two camps: "Because you and Sharon had fallen out, I didn't see Ozzy at all for about six years after the last gig. Then you and Sharon [were] talking and everything was okay again, and it was great to finally get to talk to Ozzy again.
"We used to text each other every day. He used to send me some funny things and I'd send him some funny things. It was just great to be back together again after all these years. I mean, he's probably my oldest friend. I've known him for 57 years, so it was great to get back together again."
The emotional reunion wasn't without its difficult moments. Butler recalled being shocked at Ozzy's condition during rehearsals: "When we get together, it's almost like we've just seen each other the week before, even though it's been like six or seven years or whatever. Of course, Tony was joking about Bill 'cause he kept saying he looked like Gollum.
"The only shocking bit was when Ozzy came in. I knew Ozzy was very ill, but I didn't realize how ill he was. We were rehearsing, the three of us. We started — me, Tony and Bill — rehearsed for the first two days just to get all the music together, sort out which songs we were gonna do and everything like that. And then on the third day, Ozzy came in and he was helped in by two helpers. And I was just shocked to see him like that.
"And, of course, being Ozzy, he had to crack a few jokes and things. And they had like an armchair set aside so he could sit down to sing through the songs, 'cause he couldn't stand up. I think we rehearsed about six or seven songs and picked out four or five. We knew we could only do four or five 'cause of the time limit, and we picked out the four or five songs that sounded the best and which we were most comfortable with.
"And after that, we fell into the old Sabbath again. Ozzy could only do it once, could only rehearse, go through the songs one time and then he'd leave and we'd sort of carry on. We had to get the solos really well together and stuff like that."
Despite the gravity of the moment, Butler said the chemistry between the bandmates was instant — like no time had passed at all: "There's never any sort of egos or resentments for each other. It's just a bit of a laugh fest when Tony picks up on taking the piss out of Bill as usual. Bill loves being taken the piss out of. It was just funny doing the old jokes, just talking about the same old stuff. It's good."
