BLACK SABBATH Still Intends To Perform At U.K.'s DOWNLOAD Festival

January 18, 2012

According to The Pulse Of Radio, organizers of England's Download festival are saying that BLACK SABBATH still intends to perform at the event, scheduled for June 8-10, despite guitarist Tony Iommi's cancer diagnosis.

SABBATH was reportedly also slated to play at this April's Coachella festival in California, but pulled out of that show one day before its lineup was announced when Iommi's illness was revealed.

Download organizer Andy Copping said, "I've been told that BLACK SABBATH are going to be playing Download. I don't want people to worry unduly about that, we should all just send our thoughts and best wishes to Tony Iommi."

Other acts on the bill include METALLICA, SOUNDGARDEN, THE PRODIGY, ANTHRAX, LAMB OF GOD, UGLY KID JOE and more.

Iommi told The Pulse Of Radio that ever since re-learning how to play guitar after severing two fingertips as a teenager, he's always been determined to fight his way through anything. "I've always been the same," he said. "I always have to try to get over that barrier, whatever it may be, and do it, you know. And that's continued in what I do with the music. People have said over the years, 'Well, why do you still keep playing and why do you still hold BLACK SABBATH together through the different lineups?' Because I'm determined to do it, I'm determined to carry on. And it's been with everything like that."

Iommi's bandmate in SABBATH and HEAVEN & HELL, legendary heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio, died of stomach cancer in May 2010 at the age of 67.

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