Curating the final farewell for heavy metal originators Black Sabbath—and the last-ever performance of Ozzy Osbourne—was a task Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello approached with immense gravity. In a new interview with Shan Man of “98KUPD,” Morello pulled back the curtain on the chaotic preparation for the historic “Back To The Beginning” event, revealing that one of the night’s standout performances was thrown together just hours before showtime.
While Yungblud’s emotional rendition of the Sabbath ballad “Changes” was widely praised as a highlight of the tribute, Morello disclosed that the young artist wasn’t the original choice for the vocal spot.
“2,000 calls,” Morello said when asked about the tough decisions made behind the scenes (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “One of the greatest moments of it was Yungblud singing [a cover of Black Sabbath‘s] ‘Changes‘. Well, 48 hours before, he wasn’t gonna be the singer of that song. Things were changing… I landed at Heathrow Airport and I got a call, like, ‘That’s not happening.’ So I’m, like, ‘Okay, let’s figure it out.’ And it turned out to be one of the highlights. But that’s the gig. That’s what the gig is.”
The pressure to deliver a flawless send-off for the icons of the genre was heavy. Morello explained that his goal was never just to put on a good concert, but to cement a legacy.
“Well, I had that in my bullseye from the beginning,” he explained. “If we’re gonna do this, we have to aim to make it the greatest day in the history of heavy metal. Heavy metal is the music that made me love music. It’s in the DNA of 90% of my favorite artists. And so if we’re gonna do this, we really have to treat it with the gravity that it deserves. I will say that once the actual day started, and, dude, it was thousands of hours of preparation and worry and anxiety and changing around stuff — changed in the last 24 hours, et cetera, et cetera — but once it actually started, I had to let go. I’m, like, ‘Okay, the bands are now gonna play their songs or they’re gonna fall off the stage. I can’t control it anymore.'”
Before the crowds filled the stadium in Birmingham, Morello experienced a surreal moment during rehearsals that solidified the importance of the event. He described stumbling upon Black Sabbath soundchecking their seminal anti-war anthem for the penultimate time.
“I’ll share two moments with you. One was — it was actually the night before,” Morello recalled. “We had had three days of 12-hour rehearsals with the supergroups. And we just finished the last one. Everybody’s so tired, jet lagging. The last group, which was me, Steven Tyler [of Aerosmith], Nuno [Bettencourt of Extreme], my son was there, et cetera, we’re getting ready to go back to the hotel, try to get a good night’s sleep before this thing actually kicks off. And somebody comes in and goes, ‘Black Sabbath is soundchecking right now. Do you wanna go see ’em?’ And we’re, like, ‘Oh, I think I can make time for that.'”
He continued: “So we are in Birmingham stadium — the only people in the stadium. There’s, like, 12 people in the stadium. Black Sabbath is practicing their intro, which is a song called ‘War Pigs‘. So this is the second-to-last time they’re ever going to play this song. The red lights are on, the sirens are wailing. There’s 12 people in the audience, and then they play ‘War Pigs‘ for us. And at the end of it — they don’t even know we’re there. So at the end of it, we’re a quarter of a mile away just cheering like crazy — Steven Tyler, and Scott Ian [of Anthrax] and me — and we’re just going absolutely [nuts]. And I felt that — I felt, ‘Okay, this is something that could really, really matter.'”
The night ended with a mixture of exhaustion and triumph at the hotel afterparty. Morello described the scene as emotional, with fans and bands alike crying and cheering in the lobby. Amidst the celebration, Morello had one final, humorous interaction with the Prince of Darkness himself—interrupted by a pinball game.
“I’m at the afterparty playing pinball with my son. And somebody’s tugging at my shirt. I’m, like, in the middle of a multiball. So I’m, like, ‘Get off me. I got a multi…’ It’s Ozzy Osbourne. It’s Ozzy,” Morello laughed. “So [Ozzy‘s son] Jack Osbourne comes back and goes, ‘Dude, that was my dad.’ I’m, like, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ So anyway, I let the pinballs drop. And I go over to him. And he was appreciative of everything that had gone on. I got to give him a kiss on the head one more time, thank him. And then this is the last words that Ozzy Osbourne said to me in person. He was, like, ‘Tell Sharon I wanna get the f**k outta here’ — in true Ozzy form and also sort of poetic in a way.”
