Yungblud got the Changes gig just 48 hours before Black Sabbath’s farewell show
One of the most talked-about moments from Black Sabbath’s star-studded farewell show almost didn’t happen. According to Tom Morello, Yungblud wasn’t even meant to be the singer for Changes until just two days before the band’s historic final performance.
In a new interview with 98KUPD radio, the Rage Against the Machine guitarist opens up about his role as curator for Black Sabbath’s all-star Back To The Beginning farewell show – an event that marked Ozzy Osbourne’s final appearance on stage. While the event may have looked seamless to fans, Morello says the reality behind the curtain was far more chaotic.
READ MORE: Yungblud claims that the “bitterness” and “blind negativity” he experiences is discouraging the next generation of rock artists from “trying at all”
Asked when he realised the show was “more than just a concert”, Morello replies [via Blabbermouth], “Well, I had that in my bullseye from the beginning. If we’re gonna do this, we have to aim to make it the greatest day in the history of heavy metal. Heavy metal is the music that made me love music. It’s in the DNA of 90% of my favourite artists. And so if we’re gonna do this, we really have to treat it with the gravity that it deserves.”
“I will say that once the actual day started, and, dude, it was thousands of hours of preparation and worry and anxiety and changing around stuff – changed in the last 24 hours, et cetera, et cetera – but once it actually started, I had to let go. I’m, like, ‘Okay, the bands are now gonna play their songs or they’re gonna fall off the stage. I can’t control it anymore.’”
That last-minute uncertainty extended to some of the night’s most powerful moments. Asked whether there were any “hard calls” fans didn’t know about, Morello didn’t sugarcoat it.
“2,000 calls,” he says. “One of the greatest moments of it was Yungblud singing [a cover of Black Sabbath’s] Changes. Well, 48 hours before, he wasn’t gonna be the singer of that song. Things were changing… I landed at Heathrow Airport and I got a call, like, ‘That’s not happening.’ So I’m, like, ‘Okay, let’s figure it out.’ And it turned out to be one of the highlights. But that’s the gig. That’s what the gig is.”
Elsewhere, the musician also shares his final memory of Ozzy from later that night. At the afterparty, Morello was playing pinball with his son when someone tugged on his shirt mid–multiball. That someone, it turned out, was the Prince of Darkness himself.
“[Ozzy’s son] Jack Osbourne comes back and goes, ‘Dude, that was my dad.’ I’m, like, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ So anyway, I let the pinballs drop,” says Morello. “And I go over to him. And he was appreciative of everything that had gone on. I got to give him a kiss on the head one more time, thank him. And then this is the last words that Ozzy Osbourne said to me in person. He was, like, ‘Tell Sharon I wanna get the fuck outta here’ – in true Ozzy form and also sort of poetic in a way.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
