Black Sabbath had previously announced that it would release one last album during 2015 but now the heavy metal icons have one-upped itself by declaring that the band's headlining gig at Ozzfest in Tokyo during November will be its last show ever (from Billboard).
The band—best known for hits such as "Iron Man," "War Pigs" and "Snowblind"—will play at the Makuhari Messe concert venue outside of Tokyo on November 22, bringing Ozzfest and the legendary band's career to a close (Korn will headline the first night of the festival, for whoever's curious). The lineup will include vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, but there's no word on who will helm the drums as of yet. Osbourne has expressed interest in getting original percussionist Bill Ward behind the set, but nothing's confirmed. Ward was reportedly in awful shape at the time of recording for 13—the band's last album—leading the other members to draft Rage Against The Machine's Brad Wilk instead.
The band doesn't currently have any tour dates listed on its website, but you can expect at least a short tour if this is truly the group's last hurrah.
The group may have entered the studio already to work on its 15th and final album, collaborating with producer Rick Rubin. No release date has been set so far.
Some will point out that Black Sabbath has broken up previously, but that's not quite true: After Osbourne left the group to go solo during 1978, the band quickly picked up Rainbow frontman Ronnie James Dio to fill the role. Although many purists don't consider this "Black Sabbath" per se, and the band continued to exist even when it was only Iommi remaining during the '80s. Eventually most of the original lineup returned during 1997, and continued until 2006 when Dio rejoined and the group changed its name to "Heaven and Hell." In one way or another, some variant of Sabbath has existed since its debut album during 1970. That won't be true come December.
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