Rob Halford, heavy metal frontman of Judas Priest, opened up about not playing at Black Sabbath’s final show. Halford has been a longtime admirer and occasional collaborator of Black Sabbath, which is why he felt “gutted,” according to NME, as he was not aware that the show was taking place until it was already too late. 

The show is set to take place on July 5 at Villa Park Stadium in Birmingham and will mark the last time Black Sabbath will perform live all together, along with Ozzy Osbourne’s final live performance. The show was announced back in February and is confirmed to have lots of big metal bands, such as:

“Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Alice In Chains, Gojira, Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan, KoRn and more were among some of the first acts announced, and later additions included Tool, Guns N’ Roses, Jason Momoa, Anthrax, Soundgarden and Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler,” stated NME. 

While it seems that the legendary metal band’s final performance is going to have an insane line-up, Halford revealed in an interview with Metal Hammer why Judas Priest will not be taking part of the final performance. 

“We’ve known this guy Ossy Hoppe – he’s like a god in Germany for metal – [and] he came in to see me at one of our last shows and says, ‘Would you consider doing something really special and important? I’m putting on the Scorpions for their 60th anniversary, in their hometown. Would you work with the band?’”

“I was just like, ‘Done! We’ve got no plans it’s all good’,” the ‘Breaking The Law’ hitmaker added. “It all got announced… and suddenly I get this phone call [from Sharon Osbourne, saying]: ‘Robbie, I know you’ve got this gig with Scorpions, but could you consider coming over to do a thing with Ozzy and the guys, he’d love to see you.’”

“My mind went to Phil Collins when he did Live Aid, where he got on the Concord from London to Philadelphia to play two gigs in two places,” he added, before saying that he turned down the offer because it felt like it could be “dangerous”.

“Even with a private plane, there’s a word called ‘technical’, where something could go wrong, or the weather that time of year could cause problems… I was absolutely gutted.”