Mastodon have looked back on the stressful but ultimately rewarding experience of playing Black Sabbath’s final show Back To The Beginning in July 2025.
The Atlanta heavy metal band opened the all-day extravaganza at Villa Park stadium in Birmingham on July 5, followed by sets from Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Tool and more before Sabbath and singer Ozzy Osbourne’s solo band headlined. It was Osbourne’s last time onstage before he died of a heart attack 17 days later, aged 76.
In a new appearance on Amoeba Records’ What’s In My Bag? video series, singer/bassist Troy Sanders picks Osbourne’s 1980 solo debut Blizzard Of Ozz as one of his chosen records, saying, “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.”
He adds: “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.”
When asked what it was like playing Back To The Beginning, Sanders answers: “Unfathomable. Nerve-wracking. Equal amounts extreme anxiety and unbelievable pleasure.”
Guitarist Bill Kelliher adds: “There was a lot of tension and anxiety until we played first, and then it was like, ‘Yay! This rules. We did it!’”
“We didn’t screw up!” says drummer/vocalist Brann Dailor. “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.”
Mastodon played a three-song set, opening with the originals Black Tongue and Blood And Thunder before playing Supernaut with Gojira’s Mario Duplantier, Tool’s Danny Carey and Slipknot’s Eloy Casagrande handling extra percussion.
Dailor looked back on Back To The Beginning during 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.”
Mastodon, who formed in 2000 and won the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance with their single Sultan’s Curse, have a long history with Sabbath. Talking to The Guardian last month, Dailor said, “The first time I ever 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 performs a bass solo on the band’s new album, Marrow Deep, which came out last week. It was their first studio album without founding guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds, who parted ways with the band in March 2025 and died in a motorcycle accident, aged 51, the following August.
