On December 4 and 5, 1997, Black Sabbath’s original line-up reunited for a pair of hometown shows at Birmingham’s NEC Arena. There had been a handful of fleeting reunions in the 18 years since Ozzy Osbourne had been booted out of the band, including a sluggish appearance at the US leg of Live Aid in which they had the air of a band who had drunk their hotel bar dry the night before (it turned out they had), and a four-song set in Costa Mesa, California in 1992 to mark Ozzy’s farewell show (we all know how that turned out).
But those two nights in Birmingham were the first proper shows Aston’s own Four Horseman Of The Apocalypse had played together since 1979. To this day, they’re hands-down the two most joyous gigs I’ve ever seen – hometown heroes bringing it, well, back to the beginning.
