Tony Iommi wasn’t comfortable with Black Sabbath playing PowerTrip Festival due to Ozzy’s health issues

Tony Iommi wasn’t comfortable with Black Sabbath playing PowerTrip Festival due to Ozzy’s health issues

Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi was recently interviewed by Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation.

Iommi was approached to have Black Sabbath perform at the inaugural PowerTrip Festival, which will take place at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, USA from October 6 to 8, 2023. The PowerTrip Festival has arguably six of the biggest rock n’ roll bands for its first edition, consisting of Guns N’ Roses and Iron Maiden on Day One, AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne on Day Two, and Metallica and Tool on Day Three.

With respect to Black Sabbath almost being part of the PowerTrip Festival‘s inaugural edition, Iommi indicated: “Yes, there was. Yeah. But I didn’t at that point. It’s hard because Ozzy‘s been going through a lot of stuff lately, and you know, he’s in hospital and out of hospital and he’s really been fighting it. He really wants to get out there. But it’s in my mind, it’s very difficult to sort of say yes and think, I’ve gotta think of the people in the band as well. I’ve gotta think of Ozzy if he’s gonna be all right to do a show and whatever. So I wasn’t that comfortable with it. I didn’t know Ozzy would be doing it on his own. But it’s great. I hope he can do it, and that’ll be really good. And he really wants to do it, and he’s really trying to pull to get himself back. I mean, he’s had to go through such a lot of hard stuff lately. Um, it’s such a shame really. But he is still fighting there.”

In terms of whether it was true that Black Sabbath was first approached about p-laying the festival but that Ozzy ended up taking it as a solo show, Iommi stated: “Yeah, sort of. Yeah. I mean, we hadn’t, we hadn’t approached the others as far as doing it. I mean, they might have said no, you know, but it didn’t get much further than me, really. If you’re gonna go out, I want to do a good show. I want to go and go out on the top and do it. I don’t want to just go and slap someone together, you know? And I’m not saying it would’ve been, but it could have been difficult.”

Audio clip of interview with Tony Iommi courtesy of SiriusXM‘s Trunk Nation: