Black Sabbath officially announce The End

Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath have officially announced The End.

The band posted two images on their Facebook page – one with an image reading “Black Sabbath 1968-2017” and another showing Geezer Butler, Ozzy Osbourne and Tony Iommi on stage early in their career.

While the band wrapped up their 81-date The End tour in Birmingham last month, signing off with their classic 1970 hit Paranoid in front of a sold out show at the city’s Genting Arena, guitarist Iommi has previously hinted that one-off shows could happen in the future.

But could that possibility be in doubt in light of the two new social media posts?

In a recent interview with Classic Rock when asked if playing another show in Birmingham to mark their 50th anniversary next year could happen, Iommi says: “It would be nice, wouldn’t it? But again, there’s nothing planned. Not to my knowledge, anyway, but if we were offered something like that I think it would be great.”

He adds: “That’s the problem, you see. We don’t want to call it The End and then go off on another tour. One-off events? Yeah, I’d have no problem with that. I don’t think any of us wanted Sabbath to stop, but it got to the point where, for me, I needed it to.”

Frontman Osbourne previously reported: “We’re doing 80 shows – it’s good enough. I wouldn’t mind extending the tour for another few gigs. There’s a lot of people who won’t get to see us, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.

“We started off as four guys from Aston who had a dream, and it came true beyond our wildest dreams. We were manipulated, ripped off, conned. We lost each other within each other. But it’s great to have got this back just to end on a high note.”

Tony Iommi on The End of Black Sabbath... Or is it?

Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in the summer of 2014 before moving to the e-commerce team in 2020. Scott maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald, covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott's favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, Marillion and Rush.