July 4 will see the return of the Barclaycard British Summer Time Festival held at London's Hyde Park, of which Black Sabbath will be headlining alongside Soundgarden, Faith No More, Motorhead and Soulfly. It sounds all well and good until you read Metal Hammer's interview with guitarist Tony Iommi where he says it might be the band's last gig ever. Wait…what?
"'It could be the last ever Sabbath show,' the guitarist admits. 'I don't want it to be, but there's nothing really planned touring-wise after that show, so for all we know that could be it really. To be honest I don't want to be touring to this extent too much longer, because it makes me feel so bad.'"
Iommi goes on to say that the band didn't really plan on the gig being their last ever, but he thinks it'll be special nonetheless. Who could blame them if they called it quits though? They're getting "up there" in age and, more importantly, Iommi has been fighting lymphoma since 2012.
"'I'm at a stage [with cancer] now where I have no support, which means I have to see whether the cancer is coming back or if it's still there or what,' he says. 'I just don't know. It's a bit of a worry. After we finish this tour I'll go in and have scan, so we'll see what that shows up.'”
Be it high time or not for the band to hang it up, it'll still be really strange to know the godfathers of metal have laid it down for good when they do.
