Legendary rock band Black Sabbath have completed their farewell tour, and played their final gig last night, in their home city of Birmingham.
Playing at Birmingham’s NEC Arena, the group played a set of 15 songs from their discography, finishing with their iconic track ‘Paranoid’ from their 1970 breakthrough album of the same name. The gig also marked the finale of their 81 date The End tour, and was streamed live on the band’s Facebook page, as well as being live-tweeted, as seen below.
The final song and final bow pic.twitter.com/r0OJimzfjJ
— BlackSabbath (@BlackSabbath) February 4, 2017
Last summer, Black Sabbath played their final headline show at Download Festival 2016, before setting out for The End tour. In November, frontman Ozzy Osbourne told Ultimate Classic Rock that he plans to continue writing music following Sabbath’s farewell tour. “It’s not me that wants to retire, it’s Black Sabbath” Ozzy claimed, “I’ll be continuing my own musical thing. My wife is good at telling me partial information, but I know I’m not hanging my boots up for a while.”
Last month, Black Sabbath’s keyboardist Geoff Nicholls died aged 68, after a long battle with cancer, having toured and performed with the band for over 25 years. “Geoff Nicholls was a great friend of mine for a long time. He will be greatly missed. I’m very saddened at the news,” said Osbourne in tribute. Thankfully there was some good news in the Sabbath camp last month, as guitarist Tony Iommi revealed that his cancer was in remission, and that a lump that was recently found in his throat was benign.