The End

Our volunteer team at New Street Station

The Home of Metal team set up a stand on the main concourse of Birmingham New Street Station to coincide with the final two shows of The End tour. We were there from Thursday 2nd to Saturday 4th February to meet and welcome fans who were travelling to Birmingham for the last ever Black Sabbath shows. We had our trusty photographer Lee Allen on hand to take portraits of fans to contribute towards the archive and lots of volunteers to hand out flyers and spread the word about Home of Metal and our future ambitions for the project.


Fans playing the Epiphone Guitars and Laney Amps at New Street Station

We also invited any budding Tony Iommis to have a go with some Epiphone guitars and Laney amps that we had set up on a mini stage. Birmingham Rock School were there to assist, teach participants chords, riffs or just the basics on how to set up the guitar. Thanks for your help, guys!


Fans from Mexico visit the Home of Metal

The rest of the Home of Metal team attended the final two gigs on Thursday and Saturday at the Genting Arena. Along with our volunteers we had Katja Ogrin photographing the fans and she capatured over 400 portraits on the last night alone. The photos we’ve collected will be uploaded onto the Home of Metal website over the next week so keep your eyes peeled and we’d love it if you share them far and wide to help more fans to hear about Home of Metal.

We met and chatted to some incredible fans at the final shows and can’t wait to work with them again on the next phase of the project. The atmosphere in the arena was just unbelievable, there was an enormous sense of celebration for the band and the legacy they are leaving behind. Fans travelled from all over the world to pay their final respects and show their appreciation for the godfathers of heavy metal.


Home of Metal director Lisa Meyer on BBC Breakfast

Home of Metal have had some great coverage of the project from the BBC including an interview with Lisa Meyer on BBC Breakfast and Inside Out West Midlands. And huge thanks to our amazing ambassador Alexander Milas for representing us on the Victoria Derbyshire show and BBC Radio 5 Live. We also got a huge response from fans when Black Sabbath posted about Home of Metal on their Facebook.


Our volunteer team captured photos in Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, London and finally Birmingham

So now our work has only just begun, as we move onto the next phase of Home of Metal: developing the new exhibition. If you’ve agreed to be contacted about an interview, to share stories or memorabilia then we’ll be in touch very soon as we begin the task of collating the content. Exciting things are to come so please keep up to date with what we’re doing by following on Twitter, liking on Facebook and checking out the Home of Metal website. If you’d like to get in touch with us about contributing to the exhibition you can do so here.

14th February 2017

Comment