It helped bring us to where we were supposed to be in 2023: Ozzy Osbourne doing a final world tour, only the 1992 retirement was with Black Sabbath. Osbourne had recently gotten sober, and following his 1991 No More Tears album – Ozzy’s sixth solo release and a #7 hit album – was playing his “No More Tours” jaunt that he claimed was his last tour (he said he wanted to spend more time home with his family). He invited Sabbath to open its last two shows at the Pacific Amphitheater in Costa Mesa, CA on November 14-15, 1992. These would be their first shows together since Live Aid in 1985.
Ozzy’s former bandmates Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler were game. They had recently reunited with Sabbath singer Ronnie James Dio (who had replaced Osbourne) and made the Dehumanizer album. But Dio refused to play the shows – maybe something to do with the dwarf nicknamed “Ronnie” that on a previous Ozzy tour he would hang by the neck until dead at the peak of the concerts? Dio did his last show with Sabbath on November 13 in Oakland, Calif., and departed back to his own career.
Rob Halford of Judas Priest stepped in to sing with Sabbath opening for Ozzy. Osbourne joined Sabbath both nights for second encores of the songs “Black Sabbath,” “Fairies Wear Boots,” “Iron Man” and “Paranoid.”
And of course, Ozzy returned to the road with his “Retirement Sucks Tour” three years later. We really couldn’t make up tales like this one if we tried.
Black Sabbath’s massive “The End” tour came to a close on February 4, 2017. It began in Omaha, Neb., on January 20, 2016.
And, then, naturally, Ozzy reversed course and announced another farewell tour, dubbed No More Tours 2, which began in 2018 and, after numerous stops and starts due to various health issues, was expected to continue in 2020. It moved to 2023, with the European and U.K. tour scheduled to begin that May 3 with Judas Priest as the opening act. Osbourne ultimately cancelled it.
Somehow, he managed to release a new studio album, Ordinary Man, in 2020, and another, Patient Number 9, in 2022.
