Billy Corgan cried as he watched Black Sabbath soundcheck for the last time.
The 58-year-old musician was one of the performers at the band’s farewell concert, Back to the Beginning, in Birmingham earlier this month and Billy admitted that seeing Ozzy Osbourne and his band together for their final performances made him cry.
He told Loudwire: “I watched them soundcheck and it was just me and another alternative musician whose name I haven’t shared because I want to respect their privacy.
“It was just the two of us standing in an empty stadium watching Sabbath soundcheck for the last time. And we both started crying. We were both like, ‘Do we know what we’re watching here?’ You understand? This is the end of our band. It’s so personal.”
And, Billy admitted he is finding it hard to deal with Ozzy’s death at the age of 76, just weeks after that gig at Villa Park in Birmingham.
He said: “I still think of them as my band. I know many people feel that way. Even when I watched them play [at Back to the Beginning], there’s this timeless quality … They don’t date. Even in listening to Sabbath, I didn’t feel sad like I thought I would feel. Sabbath comforts me with Ozzy dying. I don’t know how they do that.
“The word that I found myself using a lot leading up to the event was there’s such warmth with Sabbath.
“There’s such an embracing love or something. It’s so hard to define, but they’re one of the only hard rock bands that has that. Somehow in the power and the majesty and all the thundering metal of the thing, it seems more inviting and more warm and more celestial. They’re almost like an inexplicable thing.”