Ozzy Osbourne’s funeral procession reminded me of Princess Diana’s, but with more heavy metal

Mick Brown, left, was in Birmingham to meet metal fans such as Peter Stirzaker who had come to pay tribute to their hero - Asadour Guzelian

They had come from Sweden, Germany and all points east. One man had come from Mexico. A lot seemed to have come from Stoke-on-Trent and Bromsgrove, but most had come from Birmingham – Ozzy Osbourne’s home – to say goodbye to the native son.

At the Black Sabbath Bridge on Broad Street, unveiled in 2019 by Black Sabbath’s guitarist, Tony Iommi, and bassist, Geezer Butler, and now repurposed as a shrine, the crowds had been gathering since dawn, awaiting the procession carrying Ozzy’s hearse.

A tide of flowers flowed from the bench onto the pavement, balloons fluttered in the sky and Black Sabbath songs were blasting over the PA system.

There were beards, ponytails, tattoos, hair of many colours, black T-shirts bearing Ozzy’s image, and one saying simply “Black Sabbath: The End”, black jeans, mostly unwashed.

One might say the prominence of black was funereal, but this was just daywear. The mood was anything but sombre.

Many who came to mark Ozzy Osbourne’s death, such as band frontman Rocky Shades, above, spoke of the late singer’s authenticity - Asadour Guzelian

There were people who looked like Ozzy on a good day, and on a bad day. But nobody looked more like Ozzy than a man dressed in a long black overcoat, wearing blue-tinted glasses, a cross on a chain around his neck, peering through a curtain of black hair.

“They call me Ozzy,” he said, but his real name is Peter Stirzaker. “It should have been Smith, but my dad was dyslexic.”

He is 65, and had come from Stoke-on-Trent. He had first seen Ozzy in 1981, performing at Port Vale Football Club, with Lemmy, the Motorhead legend. “It was his charisma, his musical talent – and the fact he looked like me.”

Is that why he came here today? “No, I heard Kylie Minogue was going to be here,” he joked. A crowd had gathered around him, brandishing iPhones, and a man tried to hand him a large plastic bat – a talismanic object in Ozzy legend after the singer bit the head off a live bat on stage in Des Moines, Iowa, at a concert in January 1982 – but he waved it away. This was no time for cheap props or exhibitionism.

A group of three were hugging the crash-barrier. Adam Rowland, 50, and Rob Wilson, 55, “I think…”, from Stoke-on Trent, and Libby Moore, 45, who had caught the bus from Teignmouth at midnight to be here.

Libby worked as a barmaid, but the three of them had met years ago in the club where she was working as a stripper – “the beer was cheap,” said Rob.

“I desperately needed to say goodbye to Ozzy,” Libby said. “He invented the music that kept me sane.” She had been a Bon Jovi fan – an entry drug to the hard stuff of heavy metal. “And Ozzy kind of reminded me of myself – crackers.”

Rob Wilson, Libby Moore and Adam Rowland felt compelled to attend - Asadour Guzelian

A lot of people said that. What they loved about him was that he was completely undiluted and authentically himself.

Heavy metal was the music of the working class, and no matter how famous he became, Ozzy always stayed true to his roots.

“He had compulsive honesty disease,” Adam said. “He was a Brummie, down to earth. In a way he was a quiet bloke.” Adam appeared to conjure a picture of the great man, “Long black overcoat, limping…”

People talked, too, of Ozzy’s insecurity – a side seldom appreciated, perhaps, by disinterested observers who might have associated him with urinating on the Alamo war memorial in San Antonio Texas in 1982, and a lifetime dedicated to an unremitting enthusiasm for drink, drugs and unbridled excess.

“People wanted to protect him,” said Simon Hall, a music booker from Coventry. “We all felt we wanted to put our arms round him.”

No airs or graces, no time for entourages and the vainglorious posturing that is so often the mark of the rock star. “He was far too drunk most of the time to pay attention to all that,” said Simon, who first saw Ozzy play at the Masters of Rock Festival in 1984, his first solo performance.

“We realised then we were seeing greatness being born,” Simon added. The 57-year-old was also at Villa Park earlier this month, for Ozzy’s last concert “to celebrate his life. And now I’m here to mourn his passing. He represented the best of us, and the worst of us.”

Jack Osbourne, Sharon Osbourne and Kelly Osbourne leave after viewing tributes to Ozzy - Leon Neal

Ben Alexander, 24, drummer and leader of a new heavy metal band called Mount Slatra (“Nordic for mountain of slaughter”) had also been at Villa Park. “It felt like a Biblical experience,” he said, to see the original Sabbath line-up reunited for the last time: Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward, who had “been through a few heart attacks, but they brought him back for it”.

With an hour to go before the procession, the crowds at Black Sabbath Bridge had swollen to 20 deep, a cry, “Ozzy, Ozzy, Ozzy!” reverberating down Broad Street.

There were the halt and the lame, some on crutches. A security guard cleared the way for a mobility scooter to edge through the crowd. One almost expected the spirit of Ozzy to rise from the canal for a laying on of hands. The music had been turned up a notch or five, most of it from Black Sabbath’s album Vol. 4 (somebody had to tell me that).

From a distance could be heard the sound of a brass band, leading the procession, playing songs from Sabbath and Ozzy’s solo canon.

“Ozzy, Ozzy, Ozzy!” The chant rose to a crescendo. The band came into view, followed by Ozzy’s hearse, and six black limousines carrying mourners. Floral tributes flew through the air landing on the roof and bonnet. For a mad moment I was reminded of the funeral of Princess Diana (but she was more of a Dire Straits and Chris de Burgh fan).

The cortege stopped at the bridge, for the laying of wreaths. “It’s Kelly and Jack!” someone said, spying two of Osbourne’s six children.

But the crowd was so dense, so excited, a seething mass, craning necks, swaying and shouting – “Ozzy, Ozzy, Ozzy!” – phones held high in the air, that it was hard to tell.

Crowds craned to catch sight of the cortege as it passed through Broad Street - Asadour Guzelian

The cortege would be moving on for a private funeral for family and friends. But here it seemed the tens of thousands come to pay their respects were all family and friends.

When Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones died in 1969 and the Stones played a free concert in Hyde Park, they released butterflies from boxes as a mark of respect.

For a moment, it occurred to me that now they should release bats. “Health and safety…” said someone.

Not that Ozzy cared much about that.

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