Roundup: End of era as Black Sabbath to hang up their heavy metal guitars

Black Sabbath, the British rock group ranked as one of the greatest heavy metal band of all time, will bring a career spanning half a century to an end on Saturday night.

The band play their last ever gig to a sell-out gig at the 15,700-capacity Genting Arena in their home city of Birmingham.

Fans from every continent have gone to Britain's second biggest city for what will be the end of an era.

Black Sabbath was formed in 1968 as an antidote to the "peace and love" music popular in the so-called swinging sixties. They are regarded as pioneers of the genre of heavy metal music.

Over the last five decades, the band has sold more than 70 million albums around the world.

In the line-up in the very last concert will be Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler with Tommy Clufetos on drums.

The Birmingham concert is the finale to what Black Sabbath called their The End world tour. It took them to North and South America, Australia and New Zealand and Europe.

Likely to be included in their playlist will be a selection of their top hits from over the years, including Iron Man, War Pigs, Snowblind and the main song on their debut album, Paranoid.

Ahead of the gig, Tony Iommi told the Birmingham Mail newspaper: "It had to finish in Birmingham. It's our home and where we started. I think it will be emotional in Birmingham. It hasn't sunk in yet."

As a curtain raiser to their last ever concert, the band played to a sell out crowd at the same arena Thursday night.

Ecstatic fans who watched their penultimate gig took to social media to give their views on the evening.

Their final concert promises to be punishingly loud and thunderous, just like their gigs through the last 50 years.

As Geezer Butler said in an interview: "We're all getting up there in age, and while we're still at the top of our profession, both musically and aesthetically, we wanted to go out on the top and we feel that this is the right time to do it." Endit