Last night’s (September 7th) MTV Music Video Awards honored the life and music of the late Ozzy Osbourne with a three-song medley of solo-era and Black Sabbath songs, which were performed by a band comprising UK punk Yungblud, Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, and more.
The awards show performance took place New York’s UBS Arena, and it began with a shirtless Yungblud cackling “Crazy Train”-style from within the crowd, as the band onstage kicked into Osbourne’s iconic 1980 single — Bettencourt galloping and shredding his way through the Randy Rhoads riffage.
The medley then eased into a quick rendition of Sabbath’s “Changes,” the ballad Yungblud had previously performed back in July at the Back to the Beginning concert in Birmingham, UK.
As that song drew to a close, Yungblud departed the stage, Bettencourt grabbed a 12-string acoustic, and then Tyler and Perry took front-of-stage to work through 1991’s “Mama, I’m Coming Home.” Tyler delivered a few ad-libs (“I miss you”), before Yungblud returned so the two vocalists could harmonize through the rest of the power ballad.
Tyler capped the song with some Aerosmith-styled scatting, while Yungblud threw up the horns and yelled out “Ozzy forever, man!”
Images of Osbourne flashed across the screens throughout the performance, which you can see up above.