If you were among those who watched Saturday’s Back to the Beginning concert via its online stream, it may have seemed like Ozzy Osbourne‘s Black Sabbath bandmates abandoned him onstage at the end of the show. However, bassist Geezer Butler says that wasn’t the case.
As the stream ended, Butler, Tony Iommi and Bill Ward waved to the crowd and left the stage, seemingly leaving Ozzy, who performed seated from a throne due to his health, all by himself. As Butler writes in an Instagram post, he actually only briefly went backstage to retrieve a surprise treat for Ozzy.
“I keep hearing that people watching the stream thought that our set ended abruptly…with us just walking off,” Butler writes. “Sorry if it seemed that way. I went off to get this cake for Ozzy.”
The post includes a photo of Butler presenting the cake to Ozzy. “Cheers to the fan that captured the proper ending,” he writes.
Saturday’s concert marked the final performance by the original Black Sabbath lineup — Ozzy, Butler, Iommi and Ward — as well as Ozzy’s last live performance ever. The bill also included Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Tool, Slayer, Pantera, Gojira, Halestorm, Alice in Chains, Anthrax, Mastodon, Aerosmith‘s Steven Tyler and The Smashing Pumpkins‘ Billy Corgan, among many others.
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