Ozzy Osbourne's last stand

BIRMINGHAM, England — Ozzy Osbourne rises from beneath the stage on a leather throne adorned with a bat and two diamond-eyed skulls.

BIRMINGHAM, England — Ozzy Osbourne rises from beneath the stage on a leather throne adorned with a bat and two diamond-eyed skulls. It’s part rock ’n’ roll theater, part medical necessity. At 76, the “Prince of Darkness” has Parkinson’s disease, his spine is held together with screws and plates, and his ailing voice sometimes struggles for pitch.

But this was an emotional display of bloody-minded defiance.

On Saturday night, in his hometown of Birmingham, Osbourne forced his battered body through the final concert of his band, Black Sabbath, the godfathers of heavy metal formed in 1968. It capped a 10-hour marathon featuring the biggest names in hard rock, from Metallica and Guns N’Roses to supergroups packed with A-listers from Aerosmith, Rage Against the Machine, the Smashing Pumpkins and even Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones.