Planning the band’s last live performance for Birmingham’s Villa Park Stadium, Black Sabbath: Back to the Beginning Production Director Jake Berry asked Clair Global if singer Ozzy Osbourne’s vision to play a final show – where it all began in Aston, Birmingham, in 1968 – would be possible as a mutli-band live stream, the answer was always going to be ‘yes’.
It took a cross-continental team effort to execute one of the largest shows in the world during the UK’s busiest live events season, but with teamwork across audio, comms, radios and live recording, Clair Global paid its respects in what would become the most poignant of goodbyes to a client of decades. And in true Sabbath style, the project delivered a loud and lasting impact – 42,000 fans (20 per cent international) flocked to the venue and 5m viewers streamed the show online, with millions generated for charitable causes.
Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Acorns Children’s Hospice were beneficiaries of funds raised, alongside Cure Parkinson’s, a charity dedicated to finding a cure for the progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affected Ozzy in his later years.
With Mastodon, Rival Sons, Anthrax, Halestorm, Lamb of God, Alice in Chains, Gojira, Pantera, Tool, Slayer, Guns N’ Roses & Metallica supporting, and a ‘supergroup’ featuring Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins), David Draiman (Disturbed), Duff McKagan and Slash (Guns N’ Roses), Frank Bello (Anthrax), Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit), Jake E Lee, Jonathan Davis (Korn), KK Downing, Lzzy Hale (Halestorm), Mike Bordin (Faith No More), Rudy Sarzo, Sammy Hagar, Scott Ian (Anthrax), Sleep Token ii (Sleep Token), Papa V Perpetua (Ghost), Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine), Wolfgang Van Halen and Zakk Wylde also among those joining Ozzy and Black Sabbath band mates Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward, Back to the Beginning was no ordinary event.
‘I had senior production managers telling me that what we wanted to do for this show was not possible, but if you put people such as Jake Berry and Tom Brown in charge, guess what? We were ahead of schedule, and had rapid changeovers on the day,’ says Clair Global FOH Engineer, Greg Price.
Price’s history with Ozzy is considerable: ‘I have spent 30 years of my 50-year career with Ozzy and Sharon,’ he begins. ‘When I moved to LA in the ’80s, to get work, they were the only ones that gave me a chance. Sharon and Ozzy let me grow my talent with them. I met Martha, my wife of 27 years on my first Ozzy tour, and the Price family has toured with the Osbourne family together all this time. We did all 17 years of Ozzfest together, too. When you add Black Sabbath into the equation, I have mixed both bands since 1995.’
Price’s passion for building lasting relationships led to Diablo Digital – a company that specializes in turnkey, live-recording systems – alongside fellow engineer Brad Maddix. ‘Diablo Digital was set up to provide added value to clients and this is why Sharon and Ozzy kept me around for 30 years,’ Price says. ‘I’ve provided them with the tools to continue to increase their brand and monetise it. Clair Global is now positioned in a way that we do this daily.’
‘On top of virtual sound checks etc, live recording scales up our capability and technical prowess measurable,’ says Back to the Beginning UK Account Executive, Tom Brown, who worked alongside US Account Executive Greg Smith. ‘As a company, we have chosen to use and expand on it to give real value to the musical client, rather than only being a tool for the engineers to use.’
Diablo Digital’s live recording expertise was accompanied by Britannia Row Productions’ ability to assemble the right team for the event. Swiss colleagues AudioRent brought in a Cohesion CO12 PA and undertook onsite system engineering.
The core sound equipment for the show comprised a Cohesion PA, Avid and Yamaha mixing consoles on monitors, DiGiCo and Avid packages at FOH, a Riedel Communications matrix system and Bolero wireless intercoms, Motorola Radios and Shure Axient Digital for RF and PSM1000 IEMs.
‘For us to take complete ownership of this event for Greg Smith in the US, it shows the trust between people within our organisation,’ says Britannia Row Special Projects Manager, Josh Lloyd. ‘I’ve worked across so many of these one-off, multi-headliner, multi-artist events, but we had the extra complexity of various acts bringing consoles in, so how we were delivering splits for broadcast varied. There were a huge number of moving pieces. Around 80 per cent of the artists who played are our touring clients, which can also be key to successfully delivering these high-profile projects.
‘Having said that, we don’t promise something we don’t think we’re capable of delivering. When Jake Berry asked, had every faith that the team we have could achieve what was needed for Ozzy’s retirement show.’
The loudspeaker system comprised 18 Cohesion CO12 on the main hangs, 16 CO12 on the house right side hang, and 18 CO12 on the house left side hang. The longer line length for house left was to provide coverage for the steeply raked upper bowl situated approximately 35ft higher than house right in the asymmetrical design of Villa Park.
‘We had a powerful show that kept the tonality the same on either side without the need to hang massive amounts of cabinets,’ says Clair Global Engineer Rich Schoenadel, who collaborated with Price on the system design. ‘We kept the low and the mid drivers working together and muted high drivers to minimise reflections off any metal or roof of the shorter side of the venue.’
Six Cohesion CP218 II+ subwoofers were flown LR next to the mains, and three more CP218 were hung vertically adjacent to each side hang. A total of 30 CP218 II+ were placed on the ground and steered symmetrically on either side of a small central thrust and camera platform. All subwoofers were in cardioid configuration.
‘Traditionally, we’d do a flown end-fire sub array behind the main array, but the direction from Greg was to go downstage and push out to have as much SPL from the front of the stage and thrust,’ Schoenadel explains. ‘That way Ozzy could be out there, and we could do the most with our design from a gain-before-feedback standpoint, allowing the mains to be off-stage a bit and splayed a little further, along with the flown subs on the stage, to keep the low end consistent in the horizontal for the grandstand seating.’
Twelve CO12 hung from each of two delay towers. The initial system design called for three delay towers, but changes in the layout required the removal of one tower. System Engineer Leon Fink noted that the team ‘didn’t really miss’ the third delay because each of the two remaining towers received an additional raised stack of four CO12 on the ground. Twelve Cohesion CO10 provided front fill in stacks of two atop the CP218 II+ on the ground.
‘The show sounded incredible,’ Smith reports. ‘Everything was recorded to perfection, and I tip my hat to Ollie Nesshman, the broadcast engineer from Red TX, because his work was phenomenal. Knowing that a broadcast truck was going to pull up to the backstage area for our feeds, the infrastructure that Tom, Josh Lloyd, myself, a few Clair Global folks put together, worked seamlessly.’
‘There was never a hiccup, and that shows the senior management skill and the vision required to do something like this,’ Brown agrees.
‘We meticulously and relentlessly designed a system that was going to work. We provided pure, clean audio feeds to the truck and provided the clients, the Osbourne family and Black Sabbath, a usable product for a broad market.’
‘I’ve grown up inside the Britannia Row ranks in terms of rock ’n roll live audio, so it’s easy to forget that not every company can do what we can do,’ Tom Brown says. ‘Back to the Beginning was complex, but that is part of our DNA. There’s a very clever skill set at work inside the company, which is never solely about design and engineering; we deliver a highly trained stage craft, and we were very proud to be trusted to help deliver Sabbath’s final concert as the world watched.
‘This was a great moment for so many of us,’ he adds. ‘As an Account Handler, to work alongside people I’ve known for a long time, including Josh and our Crew Chief, Pete McGlynn – who runs a stage like no one else can – and our crews who are at the top of their game, it really was a wonderful bit of teamwork.
‘You realise you’re very lucky to have these experiences,’ Lloyd says. ‘Fundamentally, I got into this industry because I’m a music fan, and so to work on something as unique as this, to see Sabbath’s last show, and all those artists come out and perform because Sabbath’s music has meant something to them, well, that’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. It was very emotional on the night, seeing how thankful Ozzy was to his fans, and since his passing, it’s even more special that he was able to sing in an arena for them one last time.’
‘I think Ozzy really held out just to do that show,’ said Tony Iommi to ITV News the day after Osbourne’s passing. ‘He was determined to do it, and fair dues, he’d done it. The gig was for him, really, and for us, Sabbath, to say goodbye. It was the end of the band, and we’ll never do that again.’
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