ALICE IN CHAINS' WILLIAM DUVALL On 'Back To The Beginning': 'The Whole Night Was Pretty Unbelievable'

Two days after ALICE IN CHAINS performed at Ozzy Osbourne's "Back To The Beginning" farewell concert — where the Seattle grunge pioneers covered BLACK SABBATH's "Fairies Wear Boots" — ALICE IN CHAINS frontman William DuVall took to his social media to share a few photos from the event, and he included the following message: "What an event. Such an immense honor just to be there, let alone to play and reconnect with so many people I admire that I don't get to see nearly often enough. Endless thanks to Sharon Osbourne for inviting us. Deep love and gratitude to all the amazing fans who showed up and showed out! We owe everything to you. We showed up in Aston for the same reasons you did — because we're also fans!

"[ALICE IN CHAINS drummer] Sean Kinney and I were in the dressing room at Villa Park getting ourselves together to go onstage and, at one point, the DJ playing records for the crowd between bands put on the song 'Black Sabbath' — first song on their first album. It was blasting through the PA, reverberating throughout the stadium and through the walls of the dressing room. I looked at Kinney and we both just cracked up laughing at how insanely heavy it still is. Recorded in 1969, live in the studio on an 8-track tape machine — along with 7 other songs recorded the same day for a total cost of £600 — and it still sounds like the end of the world. Fifty-five years later, for sheer heaviness, nothing beats it.

"Like for so many of you, BLACK SABBATH is a cornerstone for me. Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward are masters who took the blues/jazz tradition and rewrote it into their own language — so heavy, so swinging, so funky. We all speak dialects of it. The conversation continues forever. And Ozzy Osbourne… the ferocity, the honesty, the humor, the LOVE. He's also one of the great singers and melodists of all time. I don't think he gets proper credit. But try singing those songs sometime. I guarantee you every singer at that #BackToTheBeginning concert felt rightfully daunted. The love Ozzy emanates is the main takeaway for me though — SABBATH in early seventies playing the loudest, most bludgeoning music to ever exist but then there's Ozzy smiling, throwing peace signs in the air with both hands, screaming 'WE LOVE YOU' into the mic. He MEANT that shit too. I felt the truth in it every time just like you do. His last performance was one of the most heroic things I've ever seen. All of the musicians around him — tremendous. Shout-out to Zakk Wylde and our man Mike Inez. What a beautiful full-circle moment. And Ozzy was incredible! Despite ALL the challenges, he was still THAT guy. The joy, the pain, the playfulness, the yearning, and the fucking FURY comes from so deep within him that it couldn't possibly be stopped. One last time he said, 'I love you all!' As always, we felt the truth of it in our very souls. We love you, too, Ozz. Forever. Inspirational to the very end.

"Here's a few snaps. So many more photos I wish I had gotten. No way to truly do the experience justice. The whole night was pretty unbelievable."

According to The Guardian, "Back To The Beginning" was livestreamed to more than five million fans worldwide (with peak audience of 5.8 million fans watching the livestream).

Ozzy played a five-song set with his solo band — consisting of guitarist Zakk Wylde, bassist Mike Inez, keyboardist Adam Wakeman and drummer Tommy Clufetos — before being joined by fellow original BLACK SABBATH members Tony Iommi (guitar),Geezer Butler (bass) and Bill Ward (drums) for four classic SABBATH songs: "War Pigs", "Iron Man", "N.I.B." and "Paranoid".

Ozzy's solo set consisted of four songs from Osbourne's 1980 solo debut album "Blizzard Of Ozz" — "I Don't Know", "Mr. Crowley", "Suicide Solution" and "Crazy Train" — along with his 1991 "No More Tears" ballad "Mama, I'm Coming Home".

The 76-year-old heavy metal singer, who has Parkinson's disease, sang while seated on a black throne and appeared overcome with emotion at times. "You have no idea how I feel. Thank you from the bottom of my heart," he told the crowd.

At the end of SABBATH's set, Ozzy said: "It's the last song ever. Your support has enabled us to live an amazing lifestyle, thank you from the bottom of our hearts." Osbourne was then presented with a cake, while fireworks lit up the stadium from overhead.

A message on screen then read, "Thank you for everything, you guys are fucking amazing. Birmingham Forever," before the sky lit up with fireworks.

More than 40,000 fans attended the event, which also saw performances from METALLICA, SLAYER, PANTERA, LAMB OF GOD and ANTHRAX, among others. Profits from the show will be shared equally between the charities Cure Parkinson's, Birmingham Children's Hospital and Acorn Children's Hospice.

There was also an online auction benefiting those charities. Items up for bid included two Gibson guitars signed by performers, a GUNS N' ROSES pinball machine, several gold record and CD displays including BLACK SABBATH's "Paranoid", LED ZEPPELIN's "Physical Graffiti" and METALLICA's "Master Of Puppets", plus more than a dozen travel packages.

A livestream of the daylong event was announced in June. While it was called a livestream, the video was delayed two hours from the in-arena start time.

Livestream tickets were priced $29.99, which got you live viewing and access to video for 48 hours. The livestream and T-shirt bundle was priced $64.98. It got you event viewing and a "Back To The Beginning" T-shirt.

"Back To The Beginning" was captured, produced and distributed by Mercury Studios ("One To One: John & Yoko", "American Symphony", "Metallica Saved My Life"). Mercury has partnered with Kiswe — the global D2C streaming partner behind the record-breaking BTS concert livestream — to deliver this moment of music history to fans across the globe.

The all-day event at Villa Park, produced by Live Nation, was hosted and compered by American actor Jason Momoa.

Curated by RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE guitarist Tom Morello, the event featured arguably the greatest lineup of rock and metal bands ever assembled on one day.

Two hastily assembled supergroups — dubbed Supergroup A and Supergroup B — performed at the event, with EXTREME's Nuno Bettencourt taking part in a five-song set of covers, while ex-Ozzy guitarist Jake E. Lee made an appearance for covers of "The Ultimate Sin" and "Shot In The Dark". Former JUDAS PRIEST guitarist K.K. Downing joined Morello, Billy Corgan (SMASHING PUMPKINS) and Adam Jones (TOOL) for a rendition of PRIEST's "Breaking The Law", while LIVING COLOUR's Vernon Reid hopped onstage for a cover of Ozzy's "Bark At The Moon", with GHOST's Papa V Perpetua (a.k.a. Tobias Forge) handling lead vocals.