Ozzy: Back From Hell

Severe health issues had the Prince of Darkness worried he’d never go onstage again. Inside his latest comeback

-  KORY GROW

As soon as a pair of silver vans arrive at the VIP entrance of Birmingham, England’s Alexander Stadium, the whispers start. “Is that Sharon Osbourne?” a squinting security guard asks her friend.

“I think so,” the other guard says. “Does that mean . . . ?”

The drivers keep security in the dark — literally — by turning off their dome lights as they wait for Prince Edward to finish a speech for the closing ceremonies of the Commonwealth Games, a multisport event similar to the Olympics that took place in early August. The vans creep toward the stage. That’s when the crowd of 30,000 hears a bass drum: thump, thump, thump, thump.

“I am Iron Man!” a familiar voice bellows from the ether, as Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi struts onstage. Fifty- four years earlier, Sabbath, whose members all grew up in Birmingham, defied their foregone destinies as steelworkers to forge their own brand of metal.

A trapdoor opens and a lithe silhouette with arms outstretched levitates to Iommi’s height. “Come on, Birmingham, let’s hear you,” the figure commands as a spotlight reveals Sabbath’s founding frontman, Ozzy Osbourne, sporting a Cheshire-cat smile.

This is when the audience recognizes Birmingham’s hometown hero, and their disbelief turns deafening as Sabbath shifts from “Iron Man” to their biggest hit, “Paranoid.” It turns out the performance was such a secret that Ozzy’s son Louis, who happened to be in the audience, is in disbelief as he spots his dad onstage.