Black Sabbath Pull Out of Supposed Farewell Show
Well this is strange: Black Sabbath has pulled out of what was previously declared to be its 
“farewell” show. At the end of March, the band’s manager and Ozzy Osbourne’s wife, Sharon, released a video statement saying that Black Sabbath would headline Ozzfest Japan 2015 on November 22 and that would be it.
“Ozzfest will be back in Japan on November 21st and 22nd. And this will be Black Sabbath’s farewell,” said Osbourne at the time. “We’re also announcing Korn, who are celebrating their 20th anniversary. Now you can’t miss that.”
However, things have supposedly changed, as a new statement has been released on behalf of the band: “Despite previous reports, Black Sabbath will not appear on this year’s Ozzfest Japan, the show will instead feature the festival’s namesake, Ozzy Osbourne (and friends).”
Perhaps everyone (Riffyou.com included) misconstrued the initial festival announcement? Perhaps this was just supposed to be the final gig in Japan for Black Sabbath? That said, perhaps everyone behind the curtain could be more specific regarding what’s actually going on?
Anyways, at least we know this: Ozzy wants one more Black Sabbath album and tour this year. Now it’s just time for the blank’s to be filled.
“The whole Sabbath experience this time around was great,” said Osbourne when commenting on the band’s well-received 2013 album, 13. “We all made friends, we didn’t fuck around, we all knew that we had a job to do, and we did it. It was a lot of fun. So we’re going to do one more album, and a final tour.
“Once the dust settled after the last tour we started discussing the idea, because we were getting asked about it all the time,” he continued. “I said to Sharon ‘What’s going on? Because if there’s no more Sabbath I want to get on with my own thing again’ and she came back and said ‘Let me look into it.’ Three weeks later I asked her about it again, and she said ‘Oh, I still have to talk to so and so…’ and I said ‘Sharon, I ain’t fucking 21 any more, if we’re going to do it I want to do it before I’m 70!’ Time isn’t on our side! So she made the call and came back and said ‘Yeah, the record company wants another album.’ I believe Rick Rubin is going to do it with us again.”
-Adam Grant
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