Tom Morello has claimed Ozzy Osbourne "knew" he wouldn't perform again after his hometown show in early July. The 76-year-old rocker took to the stage at Villa Park in his hometown of Birmingham, England for the Back to the Beginning fundraising concert on 5 July. Osbourne, who performed a short solo set before being joined by his Black Sabbath bandmates, passed away almost three weeks later. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Morello, who served as the musical director for the concert, has claimed that Osbourne "knew" at the time that he was dying and it would be his final live performance. "The fact that he lived to play and feel that love and to one more time... You know, to do Paranoid; to do Crazy Train. If you have got to go - I mean, I wish Ozzy that lived another 30 years - but if you've got to go out, it really felt like he knew," he said during an appearance on Chicago's Q101 radio station. Morello described Osbourne's death as a "tragedy", but acknowledged that it was a "miracle" the heavy metal legend "lived as long as he did" because he "lived a pretty on-the-edge lifestyle for a long time". The musician added that Osbourne attended the show's after-party, where they interacted, and some of his friends met with the rocker at another event in Birmingham a week later. Even though the Paranoid hitmaker had been "frail for a while", hearing about the death of one of his "all-time greats" still came as a "terrible and tragic surprise" to Morello. Osbourne died on 22 July. His cause of death was found to be "out of hospital cardiac arrest" and "acute myocardial infarction", with coronary artery disease and Parkinson's disease with autonomic dysfunction listed as joint causes.
Tom Morello claims Ozzy Osbourne 'knew' he was dying during hometown show

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