Tony Iommi reveals why Geezer Butler was absent at Black Sabbath reunion
Lead guitarist of Black Sabbath, Tony Iommi, has revealed why Geezer Butler didn’t join him and frontman Ozzy Osbourne to reunite for the closing ceremony of this year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
Notably, Black Sabbath’s bass hero was absent as Osbourne, Iommi, drummer Tommy Clufetos, and stand-in for Butler, Adam Wakeman, reunited for the first time since 2017 to blow fans away at The Alexander Stadium with the intro of ‘Iron Man’ and the fan favourite ‘Paranoid’.
Revealing why Butler didn’t partake in this long-awaited reunion, Iommi told Birmingham Live, “I don’t think he wanted to come over as he hadn’t been well with Covid. He’d been on holiday to Kenya and to Italy and had had an accident on a boat, cracking or breaking a rib about three weeks ago, so he was not quite in fine fettle to come over to play. It’s a shame because we’d talked for a long time about the possibility of playing at the Commonwealth Games.”
One of the finest acts to come from Birmingham, fittingly, in February 2017, Sabbath closed their second stint as a band at Birmingham’s Genting Arena. The following year, when asked whether he’d be interested in performing at the Commonwealth Games, Osbourne got fans very excited. “Yeah, that would be fantastic,” he said. “With Black Sabbath or on my own. I’d like to do that. We’re all Brummies after all.”
Not long after, in the same month, Iommi supported Osbourne’s statement, telling Birmingham Live: “I think that it would be a great thing to do to help represent Birmingham. I’m up for it! Let’s see what happens!”
However, fans of Black Sabbath should not be expecting them to reunite anytime soon. Per an exclusive interview in Louder, Osbourne said definitively: “Sabbath are over: we made our mark.”
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