On August 8th, Tony Iommi and Ozzy Osbourne reunited on stage after five years. The duo, who hadn't performed together since Black Sabbath in 2017, delivered a performance of "Paranoid" and "Iron Man" at the closing ceremony of the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Iommi performed at the opening ceremony a month ago, but Ozzy's participation was kept secret until the last minute. Even more striking was the fact that this year's Commonwealth Games took place in Birmingham, England, where Ozzy and Tony grew up and eventually formed Black Sabbath.
The reunion thrilled many Ozzy fans, who saw their Prince of Darkness back on stage after a serious operation, but it also raised questions about why Geezer Butler didn't participate.
Now, in an interview with Birmingham Live , Iommi explained Butler's absence, revealing that recent times haven't been easy for his bandmate. According to the guitarist, the bassist wasn't in shape to perform due to some problems he'd suffered in recent weeks.
“I think he didn’t want to come because he hasn’t been doing well with Covid. He was on holiday in Kenya and Italy, and had an accident on a boat, breaking or cracking a rib, about three weeks ago. So he kind of wasn’t in good shape to come and play. It’s a shame, because we’ve been talking for quite a while about the possibility of him playing at the Commonwealth Games.” No further information is available regarding Geezer Butler’s situation.
During the performance, Geezer was replaced by Adam Wakeman , who used to play keyboards on Sabbath's last few tours.
In addition to Geezer, drummer Bill Ward also did not participate in the performance. He had already been absent from the band's last tours and on this occasion was once again replaced by Tommy Clufetos.
Watch the videos of Ozzy Osbourne and Tony Iommi's performance at the end of this article.
Iommi and Osbourne also collaborated on two tracks from Osbourne's new solo album, Patient Number 9 , which comes out on September 9th. One of them, "Degradation Rules," has already been released.
