Ozzy Osbourne is Retiring from Playing Shows

2024-01-23

Black and white image of Ozzy Osbourne

Ozzy Osbourne is retiring from playing gigs – Author Cat Badra, Publicity photo

The past few years have brought plenty of bookings and, subsequently, cancelations from Ozzy Osbourne. He’s had to postpone and cancel a bevy of tours and festival shows due to his ongoing health issues. But, every time a new show is booked, fans get hope again that maybe Ozzy isn’t done. Unfortunately, it appears this time, the metal icon is accepting the fact that he live days are over, as Ozzy Osbourne is retiring from playing shows.

The news comes from Ozzy’s wife and manager Sharon Osbourne. She also announced that he plans on performing two hometown shows in Birmingham, England, as his final “goodbye” to fans.

Sharon announced the news during a stop on her “Cut the Crap” spoken-word tour in London on Sunday (Jan. 21). At the top, she explained, “He won’t tour again but we are planning on doing two more shows to say goodbye as he feels like, ‘I have never said goodbye to my fans and I want to say goodbye properly'” (via Rolling Stone UK). She added that his two farewell concerts would happen in his hometown of Birmingham, likely the major soccer stadium Villa Park. “We will do it in Aston Villa where Ozzy is from,” she said.

Sharon added, “His voice is still absolutely perfect. And all the time he has been off he still does his singing lessons so his voice is perfect. And he can joke, yeah. He has all these melodies in his head. Even if you don’t like his music you can’t not like Ozzy. He just draws you in.”

Ozzy originally planned on doing a major farewell tour. His set off on the trek back in 2018. While he was able to perform some legs of the tour and a handful of festival shows, his health forced him to postpone a bunch of tour dates. Back in 2019, Ozzy had a serious spill at home that dislodged metal rods that were placed to his body previously because of an ATV accident. Thankfully, some surgeries since then have fixed the issue. But, Ozzy also announced in early 2020 that he’s been fighting Parkinson’s disease since the early 2000s. He kept the struggle private for a long time. But, he felt it was the right time to let fans know what he’s been battling.

Ozzy’s last full show was his Ozzfest performance on Dec. 31, 2018. Since then, he has performed, but nothing too lengthy. He appeared and sang with Post Malone and Travis Scott at the American Music Awards in November 2019. He sang “Paranoid” with Tony Iommi at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in August 2022. Finally, he also performed a few songs at the NFL Kickoff at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, in September 2022. It’s been great to see Ozzy out doing some shows, but it’s also obvious that he’s not well enough to be doing full concerts like back in the day. Let’s hope he can pull off his two farewell gigs. Those shows should make for an epic goodbye to one of metal’s greatest.

Cat Badra
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Posted by Cat Badra | Metal, Music, Rock News

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