Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne’s final gig – follow it live!

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Hosting it all is Jason “Ahquarman” Momoa – “metal to the core”, according to Tom Morello. So that’s why he looks so robust.

Momoa told Kerrang! that he got the call after he tried to blag some free tickets. “I was just calling my buddies. I called Scott Ian, I called Kirk [Hammett], I called people basically begging to go. And then Ross Halfin, who’s the photographer of every goddamn band, he hit me up … I said I was trying to get a ticket, then he’s like, ‘Sharon wants you to host it!’ I’m like, ‘What the fuck are you talking about, man?!’ I’m over here begging for a ticket and now they want me to host it! I’ve never hosted anything before but I’ve gotta go out in front of all these fucking people and host! And now it’s on pay-per-view. Jesus Christ… I’ll be shitting my pants but at the same time it’s the goddamn greatest metal show in history.”

Momoa is a very vocal metalhead, as this supercut demonstrates. His circle pit manners are excellent but as 2.24 shows, if you got in the way of Momoa mid-headbang you’d probably need helicoptering out of the venue.

Today’s livestream is on a two-hour delay, so us at home will experience everything later than Michael does in the stadium. Here’s the timings for how it will go down there, as leaked by Disturbed frontman David Draiman yesterday – all times BST.

Mastodon – 1.30-1.45 pm
Rival Sons – 1.52-2.07 pm
Anthrax – 2.15-2.29 pm
Halestorm – 2.37pm [not sure why this doesn’t have an end time, but am assuming 2.53pm]
Lamb of God – 3.00-3.15 pm
Supergroup A – 3.25-4.00pm
Alice in Chains – 4.07-4.22 pm
Gojira – 4.29-4.44pm
Drum-off – 4.51-5.01pm
Supergroup B – 5.08-5.48pm
Pantera – 5.55-6.10pm
Tool – 6.17-6.37pm
Slayer – 6.44-7.12pm
Guns ‘N Roses – 7.21-7.46pm
Metallica – 7.53-8.23pm
Ozzy Osbourne – 8.38-8.58pm
Black Sabbath – 9.13-9.48pm

Someone with a head mic and clipboard is going to be stressed keep that all on track. And I suppose that’s just the one Tool song, then.

Welcome to Back to the Beginning!

You wait ages for the reunion of a much-loved, era-defining British rock band and then two come along at once. After last night’s return of Oasis, now we have Black Sabbath, ultra-poignantly getting back together to give the big man up front the send off he deserves.

Ozzy Osbourne’s touring career had petered out in a frustrating series of knocks – illness, Covid-cancelled tours, more illness – and it looked like he might have been forced into retirement with unfinished business. But thanks to the sterling efforts of wife Sharon Osbourne, musical director Tom Morello and an eye-popping network of greats, we’re about to have what could reasonably be described as the biggest event in heavy metal history.

I’ll be following along with the livestream at home which starts at 3pm, while Michael Hann is in Villa Park itself and will be sending back his observations plus a big review at the end of the night.