Tom Morello Reveals Yungblud Almost Didn’t Perform ‘Changes’ At Black Sabbath’s Final Show

Black Sabbath’s final bow was always going to be heavy, according to Tom Morello, it was also hanging by a thread right up until the last minute.

Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello recently spoke with Shan Man on 98KUPD about serving as curator for Back To The Beginning, the all star farewell show that marked both Black Sabbath’s final performance and Ozzy Osbourne’s last time on stage, the responsibility, he says, was enormous.

“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.”

One of the most surreal moments came the night before the show, when Morello found himself watching Sabbath rehearse ‘War Pigs’ in an empty Birmingham stadium, only a handful of people were present, including Steven Tyler and Scott Ian (per Metal Injection).

“The red lights are on, the sirens are wailing… and then they play ‘War Pigs’ for us. At the end, they don’t even know we’re there. We go absolutely nuts. I felt, ‘Okay, this is something that could really, really matter.’”

Behind the scenes

The scale of the event brought constant curveballs, one of the biggest involved Yungblud’s now widely praised performance of ‘Changes’, which almost didn’t happen at all.

“Things were changing… I landed at Heathrow and got a call, ‘That’s not happening.’ So I’m like, ‘Okay, let’s figure it out.’ It turned out to be one of the highlights. But that’s the gig. That’s what the gig is.”

After the final notes rang out, the emotional weight followed everyone into the afterparty, including Ozzy himself, Morello recalled one of his last interactions with the metal icon.

“I’m at the afterparty playing pinball with my son… Somebody’s tugging at my shirt.

“It’s Ozzy. Jack Osbourne comes back and goes, ‘Dude, that was my dad.’ I go over to him… he was appreciative of everything. I got to give him a kiss on the head one more time. The last words Ozzy said to me were, ‘Tell Sharon I wanna get the f**k outta here’ — in true Ozzy form and also sort of poetic.”

Morello’s reflections pull back the curtain on a farewell that was exactly how Black Sabbath deserved to go out.

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