Ozzy Osbourne sure went out with a bang. For his final show, staged last month at Villa Park in his hometown, Birmingham, the legendary rocker assembled a lineup that was heavier than the Himalayas.
For anyone in the stadium, or watching on at home, ‘Back to the Beginning’ will be remembered as one of the finest moments for music at the dark end of the spectrum.
The show turned out to be the swansong and sendoff to Ozzy, who passed away two-and-a-half weeks later, having orchestrated his own, final party.
“I can’t even explain it. There’s a little hard to get my head around,” explains Justin Chancellor, bass player with Tool, performers at the one-off show, where they shared the stage with Metallica, Slayer, Guns N’ Roses and other members of rock royalty.
“I watched his whole set with my family out in the front when Sabbath and Ozzy played and I thought he was amazing. Obviously, he was really sick. You know, obviously he couldn’t stand up, but we all knew this. The band was incredible, but he was amazing too.”
Chancellor observed Ozzy afterwards at the backstage party, in great spirits. “He came out, he was in a wheelchair but he was hanging out. There were so many people talking to him.” Fast forward 17 days, and the news of Ozzy’s passing, at 76, seemed like black comedy. A weird joke.
“I didn’t see it coming at all,” Chancellor says. “I can’t even explain it. It’s a little hard to get my head around. It was very intense, because we’ve been part of (the final show). And it hit me pretty hard. It was very sad, but also very amazing.”
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He adds, “I did hear that he went off his pain medication to do the show in order to be able to hit the notes and to be more coherent. He went through quite a lot of pain to actually pull that off. It blew my mind. But it made sense when I saw the performance. It was just incredibly emotional.”
More than a month has passed since Ozzy left us, “but it’s hard to talk about,” Chancellor continues. “Maybe he just let go. That’s fucking beautiful in a way that this guy gave it all up, not just to us, but to everybody. It’s hard to put your head around it or put words to it, but there’s something very beautiful about it.”
During Ozzy’s final, nine-hour session of heavy music, Tool tore through a setlist that included “Forty Six & 2”, “Ænema” and a cover of Black Sabbath’s “Hand of Doom”.
Australian audiences will get the chance to feel the noise when the prog-metal legends return later in 2025, for a headline spot on the three-city Good Things run, their first Australian festival headline spot since Big Day Out 2011, and first tour here in over five years.
Tool is more than band. A four-time Grammy Award winner with five, brutal albums, they’re a heavy music cult, masters of the dark arts.
The touring lineup will again be led by the enigmatic Maynard James Keenan, Chancellor, guitarist Adam Jones, and drummer Danny Carey, one of the best to do it.
Speaking from his studio in Los Angeles, Chancellor admits the setlist hasn’t yet been decided. “The Grudge,” from 2001’s Lateralus, is a “favourite of ours, it’s like a go-to song that always works with a lot of different combinations of songs old and new. We love it, but we kind of leave it up to Maynard. As we get older, he’s the most sensitive to age, you know, because his instrument is his voice. The rest of us can just about pull it off. Danny’s the oldest and he’s got the most physical job. But at least he can go work out. Maynard’s got to keep his voice in ship shape. We get some say, obviously, and we can make suggestions. We’re very sensitive to his needs as far as that goes.”
Will Australian hear new material, something fresh that has emerged blinking into the light of day following 2019’s Fear Inoculum?
“We’ve got ideas of maybe releasing a song on its own. I’m not sure. We’ve got a lot of irons in the fire, a lot of great tracks that aren’t finished in any way. But it’s really down to deciding the way we want to do it. The whole climate’s changed a bit. We could release one track at a time if we wanted to,” Chancellor admits. “We did the Black Sabbath song ‘Hand of Doom’ and were like, ‘that’s pretty cool’. Maybe we should release another one of our new songs with it, like an old-fashioned 7” single with a B-side.”
Tool’s last visit to Australia was in February 2020, just before the world went into lockdown. A slew of dates to support Fear Inoculum were announced, then cancelled, thanks to the pandemic. “It’s so incredibly exciting to be back there. Australia feels almost like a lost island,” he quips. “We used to go quite irregularly. It’d be part of the circuit.” Part of the blame can be attributed to a batch of festivals falling over, including Big Day Out and Soundwave, and “the hangover from COVID was even longer than we expected.”
That next Tool album is coming along, too. “We’re working on it,” Chancellor assures. “That’s all I can say.”
Good Things Festival 2025 Dates and Venues
Friday, December 5th
Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne
Saturday, December 6th
Sydney Showground, Sydney
Sunday, December 7th
Brisbane Showgrounds, Brisbane
Tickets are available at oztix.com.au. Visit goodthingsfestival.com.
