“The truth of the matter is, I don’t believe that anybody asked us”: James LoMenzo reveals Megadeth weren’t invited to Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath’s final show

(Image credit: Per Ole Hagen/Redferns/Getty Images)

Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath’s final concert, Back to the Beginning, was a pure rock and metal extravaganza, with a lineup that included some of the genres’ finest – Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Slayer, Tool, and Pantera, just to name a few.

However, one noticeable omission was Megadeth, who, it turns out, weren’t invited. According to a yet-unpublished interview with Megadeth bassist James LoMenzo for Japan’s Burrn! magazine, the band wasn’t even approached to participate in any capacity.

“Hi brother, I sure missed seeing you here in Birmingham this week. It was noticeable that the Big Four was short one,” journalist Charrie Foglio tells LoMenzo, noting that the remaining Big Four of thrash metal – Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax – were all present.

To which LoMenzo replies, “Charrie, I’m going to let the cat out of the bag. The truth of the matter is, I don’t believe that anybody asked us, which was fine.”

“Not everybody gets invited to every party,” he adds. “But at the same time, when we were in Europe last week, David [Mustaine] said that he was reaching out to everybody and telling them that we were in the neighborhood and that we were close enough to come.

“And if they wanted us to, we could stay over for a few days and work it out… If they wanted us to. I don’t know what our manager had accomplished with that, but it didn’t get accomplished, so we just came home.”

He continues, “Even before all of this started, everyone was saying, ‘Well, what about Megadeth?’ It was really funny to read because there was no invite and there was no talking to people, there was actually nothing to do with any of it.

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“It was this exciting situation where we’re celebrating Ozzy in his retirement… Is that the right word? Retirement? Isn’t that hard to believe? Anyway, the show was amazing! I would have loved to have been there.”

Elsewhere in the interview, LoMenzo admits that he “knew about the show months and months ago” because he was recording with Sabbath drummer Bill Ward. Furthermore, the bassist also shares that Ward was “intimidated about the show. I would ask him if he had spoken to any of the guys in Black Sabbath, and he said that he spoke to Ozzy every day because Ozzy wasn’t feeling very well at that time, so I was curious.”

“He said, ‘By the way, it looks we may do this final show.’ So he knew about it, obviously, before they announced it. So I was excited when it came to fruition because I knew that it meant a lot to all the guys in Black Sabbath to have Bill up there.”

As for Megadeth’s general thoughts about the omission, LoMenzo says, “I don’t see it as controversy or anything. I do know that conspicuously we were missing, but nobody was invited.”

Weeks after the Back to the Beginning show, Ozzy Osbourne passed away at the age of 76. In the wake of the news, the music world came out in full force to pay tribute to the life and legacy of the Prince of Darkness.

Janelle is a staff writer at GuitarWorld.com. After a long stint in classical music, Janelle discovered the joys of playing guitar in dingy venues at the age of 13 and has never looked back. Janelle has written extensively about the intersection of music and technology, and how this is shaping the future of the music industry. She also had the pleasure of interviewing Dream Wife, K.Flay, Yīn Yīn, and Black Honey, among others. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her creating layers of delicious audio lasagna with her art-rock/psych-punk band ĠENN.