Legendary LED ZEPPELIN Vocalist ROBERT PLANT Reveals Why He Decided To Skip OZZY OSBOURNE's Farewell Concert
The singer says he’s invested in different musical corners and isn’t plugged into the modern metal pageant.
Summary
- Robert Plant turned down Tony Iommi’s invite to Ozzy Osbourne’s farewell, preferring intimate shows over Villa Park’s 40,000-strong crowd.
- Plant explained in Mojo that he’s focused on ‘other rich places’, not the current metal spectacle.
- Ozzy gave his final performance with the original Black Sabbath lineup on July 5 in Birmingham, two weeks before his death at 76.
Robert Plant says he turned down Tony Iommi’s invitation to Ozzy Osbourne’s farewell because the stadium-scale metal world isn’t where his head is anymore. He didn’t slam it. He didn’t mock it. He just chose not to be there.
In a new Mojo interview published mid-August, Plant recalled telling Iommi, “Tony, I’d love to come, but I can’t come. I just can’t.” He added that he doesn’t “know anything about what’s going on in that world now,” stressing there’s no hostility in the decision, only a preference for the musical spaces he’s exploring these days.
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He also made clear that scale is part of it. Stadiums are out. Intimate halls are in. That’s where he feels the music breathes without the circus.
The show he skipped was not small. Ozzy Osbourne said his public goodbye on July 5 at Villa Park in Birmingham, a marathon charity blowout anchored by a final Black Sabbath reunion with Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward. Attendance hovered around the forty-thousand mark in the building, with a massive global livestream watching from home.
Why he skipped
Plant’s explanation is straightforward. He’s been investing his time in other musical corners and doesn’t feel plugged into the modern metal pageant. He framed it as taste and focus, not beef.
The Mojo quotes sit in line with how he’s moved the past decade, prioritizing smaller rooms and projects that lean on space, dynamics, and storytelling rather than pyrotechnics and PA muscle.
He even joked that it’s not about picking Peter Gabriel or Youssou N’Dour over heavy music. It’s about the pull of “other places that are so rich,” which is plant-speak for chasing the muse where it actually lives instead of where the lights are brightest.
There’s also the practicality. Plant has done the mega-event thing more than once. Live Aid in 1985. Big London arenas. He’s not allergic to spectacle. He’s just satisfied he’s clocked that lesson. When he says his shows now are “small enough that if nobody wants to go, it’s not the end of the world,” that’s not self-deprecation. That’s a pretty seasoned line about artistic control.
The show
Back in Birmingham, the farewell had the scale of a World Cup opener. Jason Momoa hosted. Tom Morello served as musical director.
The day rolled heavy with tributes from Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Slayer, Tool, Pantera, Alice in Chains, Lamb of God, Halestorm, Anthrax, Rival Sons, and Mastodon, among others. The whole thing was positioned as a benefit for medical causes dear to Ozzy and the city.
Ozzy appeared seated, voice still cutting through, first with a short solo set, then alongside the original Sabbath for a four-song closing chapter. Fireworks, confetti, lump-in-throat moments. If you wanted tidy endings, you got one. If you wanted chaos, that showed up too. It wouldn’t be Ozzy without a little wobble in the frame.
The livestream numbers were massive, the queues were long, and the headlines wrote themselves. “End of an era” actually meant something for once.
Aftermath
Seventeen days later, on July 22, Ozzy died at 76. Friends and family framed the Villa Park performance as the goodbye he needed, the one he’d been trying to deliver for years while his health kept moving the goalposts.
The service was private. The public tributes were anything but. Birmingham turned out. The rock world did what the rock world does and argued about setlists while also crying in their cars.
Plant’s choice sits fine inside that context imo. Not every legend has to stand in the same spotlight to pay respect.
Some do it by showing up in front of two thousand people with a band that doesn’t need a thrust stage or a drone shot. Others do it by making Villa Park shake. Both approaches honor the same history.
If you wanted Plant ripping “Communication Breakdown” between Gojira and Pantera, you were never getting that anyway.
If you wanted honesty about where he is artistically, you got it. No grandstanding. No sniping. Just a veteran drawing a clean line around what still feels alive to him.
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The Prince of Darkness says goodbye in a historic metal event with Metallica, Slayer, and a supergroup of rock icons.
