BLACK SABBATH's Final Performance Was Livestreamed To More Than Five Million Fans Around The World

According to The Guardian, Ozzy Osbourne's last-ever live performance this past (Saturday, July 5) at the "Back To The Beginning" event at the Villa Park in Birmingham, United Kingdom was livestreamed to more than five million fans worldwide.

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.