When Mastodon took the stage at Villa Park on 5 July to open the Mastodon Black Sabbath final show, Back To The Beginning, the nerves were, by the band’s own account, almost unbearable. Now, in a new appearance on Amoeba Records‘ What’s In My Bag? video series, the band has reflected in full on what it meant to be part of one of heavy music’s most extraordinary days.
Singer and bassist Troy Sanders put it plainly. Describing the experience, he said: ‘Unfathomable. Nerve-wracking. Equal amounts extreme anxiety and unbelievable pleasure.’ Guitarist Bill Kelliher was more concise: ‘There was a lot of tension and anxiety until we played first, and then it was like, “Yay! This rules. We did it!”‘
The Supernaut Moment and What Followed
Mastodon played a three-song set that morning, opening with originals Black Tongue and Blood And Thunder before closing with a version of Black Sabbath’s Supernaut that brought in additional percussion from Mario Duplantier of Gojira, Danny Carey of Tool, and Eloy Casagrande of Slipknot. Drummer and vocalist Brann Dailor described the aftermath with the kind of clarity that only comes from a genuinely once-in-a-lifetime experience.
‘We didn’t screw up!’ he said. ‘We played Supernaut and we nailed it, I think, and then we played for 15 minutes, and then I was in the audience with a beer. I enjoyed the rest of the show until Ozzy came up, and then everybody started bawling and hugging and crying. It was really, really incredible and probably my favourite musical experience of my life.’
Dailor had spoken in similar terms in a Metal Hammer interview in August 2025. ‘As soon as he hit the stage, everything changed,’ he recalled. ‘As long as he sat there, it didn’t matter if he didn’t sing a note, because everyone was doing it for him. It was a beautiful thing to be a part of, everyone weeping and hugging. The Mr Crowley intro came on and everybody was just done.’
Osbourne died of a heart attack 17 days after the show, aged 76. Back To The Beginning was his last time onstage.
The Scale of the Event, and What the Mastodon Black Sabbath Final Show Actually Meant
The all-day event at Villa Park in Birmingham featured sets from Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Tool and more, before Sabbath and Osbourne’s solo band closed the night. According to Billboard, it was also the first time drummer Bill Ward had performed with Black Sabbath since 2005, adding another layer of historical weight to a show that already carried more than most could hold. The Irish Times reported that Tom Morello served as the concert’s musical director, a logistical role that gives some indication of the ambition and coordination behind pulling a day of this scale together.
For Mastodon, opening a show like that is the kind of booking that carries a particular pressure. You are not headlining. You are scene-setting for something irreversible. Sanders, picking Osbourne’s 1980 solo debut Blizzard Of Ozz for the Amoeba video, framed the debt plainly: ‘We’ve all been fascinated by Ozzy and Black Sabbath our whole lives, especially this last year, after playing the final Sabbath show a year ago, and then Ozzy’s passing. We played Crazy Train before every live show we’ve done over the past year. We just cannot thank Sabbath and Ozzy himself enough for creating the genre that we now call home. So, Ozzy forever, this is a no-brainer. Thank you, my friend.’
The band’s history with Sabbath runs deeper than one gig. Speaking to The Guardian last month, Dailor recalled the first time he met guitarist Tony Iommi: ‘He came into the dressing room and he was like, “Oh, Mastodon! Me and Geez [bassist Geezer Butler] were listening to you guys on the bus last night.”‘ Butler has since contributed a bass solo to the band’s new album, Marrow Deep, released last week. It is their first studio album without founding guitarist and vocalist Brent Hinds, who parted ways with the band in March 2025 and died in a motorcycle accident, aged 51, the following August.
Mastodon formed in 2000 and won the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 2018 with Sultan’s Curse. That the band who opened Back To The Beginning are now releasing records shaped directly by the people who headlined it says something about how deep those roots go.
