Tony Iommi’s honest thoughts on the Black Sabbath Live Aid reunion
Whilst many bands had a defining impact on the advent of the metal genre, none are more critical to its development than Black Sabbath. Creating an ominous, pulsating mass of music, they were the first band to imbue their music with a genuinely sinister sentiment, going many steps ahead of the efforts of Iron Butterly and Led Zeppelin.
Breaking through at the dawn of the 1970s, nobody had ever heard anything like it. They created something unprecedented by combining their sound with lyrics that drew on occult, supernatural and sci-fi themes. In fact, most of metal’s defining features can be traced back to the four friends from Birmingham, a remarkable feat when you note their humble origins.
Before too long, Sabbath knew they were onto a winner, and in their early period, the band produced masterpiece after masterpiece, including Paranoid and Master of Reality, with each member of their original lineup a legend in their own right. Frontman Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward are all widely revered for their individual brilliance in Sabbath.
Each was a vital cog in the machine, and together they injected rock with the necessary shot of adrenaline to carry it through the mire of the ’70s, doing their bit to give it a longer life span than many would have expected. Despite this, before too long, their hard-partying lifestyle would lead to interpersonal problems that saw Osborne fired in 1979 and Ward leave in 1980. From that moment, the rest is history, and the band would be a rotating cast until Osbourne, Iommi, and Butler reunited in 1997.
Then, in July 1985, something remarkable happened. Bob Geldof’s all-star charity bonanza Live Aid occurred, which would feature many iconic performances from legends such as U2, Queen and David Bowie. On July 14th, at the Philadelphia leg of the fundraising concerts, the entire Black Sabbath original lineup performed together for the first time since 1978.
Looking back on that momentous moment for SiriusXM’s ‘Live Aid Look Back: 35 Years Later’, Tony Iommi remembered how ad-hoc their performance was, but how wonderful it was to be back with his old friends. He said: “It was great. It was great being with the guys again. It was a bit surreal, to be honest, because, basically, I had been in the studio working. It was an unusual thing for me to come from the studio, and then suddenly, here we are, in the next couple of days, on stage in front of all the people”.
Iommi then revealed that the band only rehearsed for around an hour before making their long-awaited return the next day. “We’d never really done that before. We’d always sort of rehearsed for a proper show for a while,” Iommi continued. “But this was a quick rehearsal for an hour or whatever it was, and then the next day, of course, on stage. So it was a bit nerving, because you don’t know how things are gonna go with the equipment and all this stuff. We hadn’t been on stage together for so long. You have to sort of suck it and see what’s gonna happen”.
