A Thank You + Goodbye to Ozzy + Black Sabbath

With the Back to the Beginning concert commemorating the final live performances of Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath, there's a few things we'd like to say — mainly, thank you.

As fans, we all know the history and the significance of Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne’s careers. The accolades are endless and we could pour it on thick one more time, but what we really want to take the opportunity to do here is talk about what it means to say goodbye and why this is so hard to do just that... even if we've gone through this ritual a couple times in the past already.

Coming to grips with the finality of something shakes us as human beings. Especially in an age where the notion that we can hold onto permanence through digital preservation only intensifies, it makes finality even more difficult to reconcile.

Yes, Sabbath have been inactive since 2017 and Ozzy has been sidelined by a myriad of health issues, but we’ve always been able to cling to the idea that a comeback is possible. Now it’s here and it all feels like too much.

And it's only right that this is all ending with an event that unites rock and metal's biggest stars, all of whom were influenced and inspired by the boys from Birmingham. Unity is a quality we all, as Black Sabbath fans, know and understand well. Metalheads, punks, rockers, indie kids, grunge fans and, yes, even hippies, have all come together under the Black Sabbath banner.

Music is often described as a universal language. While a multitude of genres may represent dialects of language, Sabbath are the native tongue for so many types of music fans. Despite being metal's originators with burly riffs, they possessed enough swing, groove and flair — alongside eternally resonant lyrics (introspective, political, fantastic and carefree and fun) — that even music this heavy lured in more outsiders through the decades than they pushed away.

The end of the story that will be written about for decades to come is upon us. For all the future generations who will only know Black Sabbath as a relic of metal’s past will learn that it ended with the most historic gathering of rock and metal’s elite. It makes the end just as impactful as Sabbath’s beginnings where that sinister tritone changed the face of guitar music forever.

And it ends with the original four members of Birmingham’s heavy metal founders together one final time.

READ MORE: The Favorite Black Sabbath Album of 21 Rock + Metal Legends

The swirling of emotions, the tears that will openly pour out from the most hardened faces in any community of music fans, all says the same thing in the end — thank you.

Thank you for your sacrifices. Thank you for your vision.

Thank you for letting us see the world through your lenses and ourselves in the mirrors you’ve held up. Thank you for this thing we call heavy metal and all who followed down that same path you blazed for us all.

Thank you for cries for peace and love. Thank you for your perseverance. Thank you for showing us what reconciliation looks like.

Thanks for the RIFFS! And thanks for Ozzfest! Thank you Ozzy for cooling us down in the heat with the fire hose and buckets of water! Thanks for doom metal AND stoner metal! Thanks for a legion of guitar gods, from Iommi to Ozzy’s solo extraordinaires Randy Rhoads, Jake E. Lee and Zakk Wylde!

Thank you for sharing your vulnerability with us. Thank you for cramming yourself into bunks on tour buses for thousands of nights just to come to our cities and towns to play for us.

Thank you for selling your souls to rock ‘n’ roll!

Thank you… for everything.

To Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward — this is your night. History will never forget this moment, nor your 55 magical metal years that preceded it. We hope to fill your hearts with warmth from around the world as you perform for us for that final time.

We love you all!