OZZY OSBOURNE On His Final Concert: ‘It Didn’t Feel Like A Funeral. It Felt Like A Celebration.’

Ozzy Osbourne has posthumously shared details of his final concert in a new memoir, “Last Rites”.

The BLACK SABBATH frontman died in late July, less than three weeks after he and the rest of the band’s original lineup played at Villa Park in SABBATH‘s original hometown of Birmingham, United Kingdom. They performed four songs for more than 40,000 people in the stadium and 5.8 million more on a livestream. Ozzy also played a five-song solo set while seated in a bat-adorned throne. The festival served as a tribute to the legendary heavy metal act, including additional performances from such other groups as METALLICA, GUNS N’ ROSES, SLAYER, TOOL, PANTERA and ALICE IN CHAINS.

In a “Last Rites” excerpt published in The Times, Ozzy wrote about the Villa Park show: “Coming on stage all I could think was, is my voice really up for this? But as soon as the curtain went up I forgot about my nerves. Suddenly I was looking out over 42,000 faces, with another 5.8 million watching online. That was when the emotion really hit me. I’d never really taken it on board that so many people liked me — or even knew who I was. It was overwhelming, man, it really was.

“[My solo band and I] got through ‘I Don’t Know’, ‘Mr. Crowley’ and ‘Suicide Solution’ no problem at all. I was having a ball. But I choked up when I started ‘Mama, I’m Coming Home’. I mean, it’s Sharon‘s [Ozzy‘s wife and manager] song, y’know? One of her favorites. Lemmy [the late founder of MOTÖRHEAD] wrote it with the two of us in mind. That alone was enough to bring tears to my eyes. But the feeling I had was about more than that. It was my last hurrah. I’d made it to the stage after six traumatic years, after losing the ability to walk or do anything on my own. It was just the whole thing, all of it coming together.

“I just couldn’t hold in my emotions any more. Out in the crowd, everyone was holding up the lights on their phones. Someone said in the papers it was like I was attending my own wake, which would be a very metal thing to do. But it didn’t feel like a funeral. It felt like a celebration. There was so much love in that stadium, coming at me in waves. I had tears streaming down my face, but I felt so uplifted. The crowd noticed I was struggling, and they started singing back the words. I’ve been so lucky to have had so many wonderful fans. God bless you all.

“By the end of the song, thank God, I’d managed to pull myself together. Then it was one last ride on the ‘Crazy Train’ and time for the SABBATH set.

“The guys in SABBATH were as nervous as I was about me doing two sets in a row. They had no idea if I could pull it off. But it couldn’t have gone better. When the crowd chanted the tune of ‘War Pigs’ like they were cheering on England at the World Cup, it was just electrifying. Then we did ‘N.I.B.’, ‘Iron Man’… and ‘Paranoid’.”

In “Last Rites”, which will be made available on October 7 via Grand Central Publishing of Hachette Book Group, Ozzy also writes about his grueling battle with Parkinson’s disease, sepsis, blood clots, emphysema and multiple bouts of pneumonia.

Ozzy also talked about the Villa Park concert in “Sharon & Ozzy Osbourne: Coming Home”, a just-released BBC documentary filmed before his death.

“What a great way to go out that gig was,” he said in one of his final interviews for the documentary, which followed the final three years of his life and was broadcast on BBC One on Thursday. The one-hour film had originally been scheduled to be screened in August, but the BBC postponed it, saying at the time it was “respecting the family’s wishes to wait a bit longer”.

Ozzy said that his “emotions” nearly got the better of him during the “humbling” gig at Villa Park.

In the film, his daughter Kelly noted how “everyone was crying” in the stadium while he was singing “Mama, I’m Coming Home”.

“I couldn’t get the words out,” recalled Ozzy, adding that it had been “torture” to have to sit down on a throne to perform due to a serious spinal injury.

“The only thing that was terribly frustrating for me, I had to sit there instead of running across the stage,” the singer said. “I wanted to get up and sing so much. It was very humbling to sit in that chair for nine songs.”

Ozzy died on July 22 of a heart attack, his death certificate revealed. The certificate filed in London also said Osbourne suffered from coronary artery disease and Parkinson’s disease.

A private funeral service for Ozzy was held on July 31 on the 250-acre grounds of the house the legendary BLACK SABBATH singer and his wife bought in 1993 in Buckinghamshire, England. Only 110 of the singer’s friends and family members attended the service.

The day before the private funeral, thousands of fans gathered in the streets of Birmingham to pay tribute to Ozzy. Sharon, along with their children Aimée, Kelly and Jack, joined mourners for the emotional tribute.

Photo credit: Ross Halfin (courtesy of Premier)