After 48 years, Black Sabbath have decided to call it The End.
On August 29th, the band played their final show in Toronto, at the Molson Canadian Amphitheatre. The venue was packed with an immense amount of excitement, nostalgia, and appreciation.
The band chose a great choice of music for the setlist, which had just about everyone’s favourite’s on it. They opened the show with “Black Sabbath” and played other hits such as “War Pigs,” “Fairies Wear Boots”, “Iron Man”, and with a great choice of a song for an encore, “Paranoid”.
Due to the fact that the band members are so old (especially Ozzy), I was unsure of just exactly how energetic and exciting the concert would be. The band exceeded my expectation and performed an extremely fun filled set with plenty of energy, especially from Ozzy. It was easy to see how much he really does enjoy performing, as he had a genuine smile on his face throughout the entire set. There were times where he did lack energy and vocal range for some songs (i.e Snowblind), however he still performed tremendously and did much better than I had anticipated.
Osbourne was so focused on crowd participation and assuring that every audience member was having a good time. For a majority of the show he kept yelling for show go’ers to put their hands up and sing along. He put a larger amount of effort towards audience enjoyment more than I had seen any other artist try before, as he consistently interacted with the audience from the first song to the last. This made the show more intimate and enjoyable because it showed how much fans really do mean to Ozzy.
After a flawless performance of “Rat Salad”, drummer Tommy Clufetos amazed the audience in his lengthy but superb drum solo. Every time the audience would be under the impression that the solo was coming to a close, he would bring the intensity back up immediately and continue to astonish the audience.
This show had an extremely bittersweet feeling to it, just knowing that this was their last show that they will have ever played in Toronto, but it was also a very excellent performance. The vibe was interesting as the crowd was mainly filled with adults, but also young adults and even teens with their parents. For some this was the last of many Black Sabbath shows that they have attended however for others like myself, this was my first and last show I would attend of theirs. It was amazing to finally see such a legendary band that I listened to growing up play, it was almost mesmerizing. It saddens me that I will not see them again however, I am extremely grateful I had this experience.
