The band went on first at Villa Park, played three songs, then watched the rest of it from the crowd with a beer. Seventeen days later Ozzy Osbourne was dead.
Mastodon had the hardest slot at Villa Park. They went on first.
The Atlanta band opened “Back To The Beginning” on July 5, 2025, the all-day event that ended with Black Sabbath‘s last performance and Ozzy Osbourne‘s final appearance onstage. Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Tool and others followed them across the day.
Speaking on Amoeba Records‘ “What’s In My Bag?” series, bassist and vocalist Troy Sanders chose Blizzard Of Ozz as one of his records and explained why it was not a difficult pick.
“We’ve all been fascinated by Ozzy and Black Sabbath our whole lives, especially this last year, after playing the final Sabbath show a year ago, and then Ozzy’s passing,” he said.
“We played ‘Crazy Train‘ before every live show we’ve done over the past year. We just cannot thank Sabbath and Ozzy himself enough for creating the genre that we now call home. So, Ozzy forever, this is a no-brainer. Thank you, my friend,” he added.
Asked what the day was actually like, Sanders did not dress it up.
“Unfathomable. Nerve-wracking. Equal amounts extreme anxiety and unbelievable pleasure,” he replied.
Guitarist Bill Kelliher said the relief came the moment they finished. “There was a lot of tension and anxiety until we played first, and then it was like, ‘Yay! This rules. We did it!’”
Drummer Brann Dailor put it more bluntly. “We didn’t screw up! We played ‘Supernaut‘ and we nailed it, I think, and then we played for 15 minutes, and then I was in the audience with a beer. I enjoyed the rest of the show until Ozzy came up, and then everybody started bawling and hugging and crying. It was really, really incredible and probably my favourite musical experience of my life.”
The set ran to three songs: “Black Tongue” and “Blood And Thunder” from their own catalogue, then “Supernaut“, with Mario Duplantier of Gojira, Danny Carey of Tool and Eloy Casagrande of Slipknot adding percussion.
Dailor described the moment Osbourne appeared in an interview with Metal Hammer the following month. “As soon as he hit the stage, everything changed. As long as he sat there, it didn’t matter if he didn’t sing a note, because everyone was doing it for him. It was a beautiful thing to be a part of, everyone weeping and hugging. The ‘Mr Crowley‘ intro came on and everybody was just done,” he said at the time.
Osbourne died 17 days later at the age of 76. His death certificate lists four joint causes: out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, acute myocardial infarction, coronary artery disease, and Parkinson’s disease with autonomic dysfunction.
The two bands go back further than that afternoon. Mastodon toured with Black Sabbath on Ozzfest in 2005, and Sabbath had been paying attention.
“The first time I ever met [guitarist] Tony Iommi, he came into the dressing room and he was like, ‘Oh, Mastodon! Me and Geez [Geezer Butler] were listening to you guys on the bus last night,'” Dailor told The Guardian last month.
Butler also named the band in his autobiography, which is the detail that gave Sanders the nerve to make a phone call.
Standing at that show, Sanders decided to ask Butler to play on the album Mastodon were making.
“We’d just played the ‘Back to the Beginning‘ show and I thought, ‘What’s the worst that can happen if we ask Geezer to guest on our album? He could say no?'” he told Bass Player in July. “We knew he was aware of us because he’d mentioned Mastodon in his autobiography as a band he enjoyed listening to. That blew our minds.”
They sent him a few songs and asked for nothing in particular.
“We wanted him to hear where the record was going and see if anything inspired him, and he sent back this incredible bass solo that became the introduction to a song called ‘The Vanishing‘. It’s a very Sabbath-inspired track. It’s definitely the bass highlight of the album. And I’m completely happy saying that,” he said at the time.
The two have still never met. “Everything went through management,” Sanders explained. “We’ve never actually met face to face. At the Sabbath show at Villa Park [in July 2025], it was a madhouse in the Sabbath area, so the idea of trying to go back there just didn’t feel right.
“We’re hoping to finally meet when we’re touring the States later this year because he’ll be near one of our days off. If we can actually sit down together, that’ll complete the whole circle,” he added.
Marrow Deep, released on August 28 through Loma Vista Recordings, is Mastodon‘s ninth album and their first without founding guitarist Brent Hinds, who left the band in March 2025 and died in a motorcycle accident that August at the age of 51. It is also their first as a five-piece, with Nick Johnston and João Nogueira confirmed as permanent members in early 2026, and it carries guest appearances from Randy Blythe, Joe Duplantier, Neil Fallon, Josh Homme and Converge‘s Nate Newton and Ben Koller alongside Butler.
Mastodon formed in 2000 and won the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance with “Sultan’s Curse“.
