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“It's the biggest show on the planet... I'm like, ‘Oh you gotta be kidding me right?’” Zakk Wylde recalls his “Spinal Tap moment” during Back to the Beginning
Having Zakk Wylde for what would turn out to be Ozzy Osbourne's – and by extension, Black Sabbath's – final show, Back to the Beginning, was a no-brainer considering he was, on and off, the Prince of Darkness’ right-hand man and go-to guitarist since 1987.
However, such a large-scale event doesn't happen without its fair share of technical hurdles, and Wylde recalls what he calls his “Spinal Tap moment” during the show that drew 40,000 metalheads to Villa Park in Birmingham, and an additional 5.8 million on the accompanying livestream.
“When we were doing Mama, I’m Coming Home, I remember… the friggin’ acoustic’s over here, and the mic stand’s over there, and I’m like, ‘Oh, you gotta be kidding me, right?’” Wylde recalls of that day.
“So we start, the boss [Ozzy] cracked one of the notes, and I just go, ‘Alright, I have quite the metal conundrum right now. Not a pickled conundrum, a metal conundrum.’ So I was like, ‘How am I gonna get the guitar over to here without stopping playing?’
Ozzy Osbourne's last gig / Mama I'm Comming Home ( Back To The Beginning) 05.07.2025 Birmingham - YouTube
“So I was just hoping maybe Criss Angel [the famed magician and illusionist] could advise me on some magic at this point to try and get the guitar to levitate over the year,” he quips. “But I just couldn't get in touch with Father Criss. So I had to manually pick up the guitar and had to stop playing.”
Looking back, Wylde describes the whole snafu as “just comedy – because it was the biggest show on the planet. There's always got to be some Spinal Tap moments going on. It just did, without fail. So that was pretty funny.”
Janelle is a staff writer at GuitarWorld.com. After a long stint in classical music, Janelle discovered the joys of playing guitar in dingy venues at the age of 13 and has never looked back. Janelle has written extensively about the intersection of music and technology and how it is shaping the future of the music industry, and has a special interest in shining a spotlight on traditionally underrepresented artists and global guitar sounds. She also had the pleasure of interviewing Melissa Auf der Maur, Yvette Young, Danielle Haim, Fanny, and Karan Katiyar from Bloodywood, among others. When she's not writing, you'll find her creating layers of delicious audio lasagna with her Anglo-Maltese, art-rock band ĠENN.
