Zakk Wylde plays Black Sabbath, then plays himself: the double set in São Paulo on 18 October

On one Sunday night at Terra SP, the guitarist who held Ozzy Osbourne’s chair longer than anyone takes the same stage twice, under two band names. The promoter says it has never happened in Brazil.

On 18 October, a Sunday, doors at 18:30, Zakk Wylde walks onto the stage at Terra SP in Campo Grande and plays Black Sabbath songs under the name Zakk Sabbath. The same night, on the same stage, under a different band name, booked by the same promoter, he plays his own catalog with Black Label Society. The event page bills three acts (Dark Chapel, Black Label Society, Zakk Sabbath) and states no running order and no set times. The promoter’s copy is blunt about the novelty: “By the first time in Brazil, ZAKK WYLDE will perform two sets (BLS + ZAKK SABBATH) in a single night, 18/10 in São Paulo” (Clube do Ingresso).

If the touring lineup that played the American winter run is the one that lands in Campo Grande, the same four or five musicians do two jobs on one load-in. The promoter has not said.

The chair, and who sat in it

The interesting part is who is doing it.

Wylde got the Ozzy Osbourne gig in 1987, at twenty, replacing Jake E. Lee. His then-girlfriend heard Osbourne was looking on the Howard Stern show and sent in a tape (Wikipedia). He played and co-wrote through No Rest for the Wicked (1988), No More Tears (1991) and Ozzmosis (1995), left, came back around Down to Earth, was replaced by Gus G. in 2009, and came back again for the final years (Wikipedia). That is three stints across nearly four decades, which makes him Osbourne’s longest-serving guitarist, the framing Guitar World used when it put the two of them on the record about “three decades together” (Guitar World).

So the man playing “War Pigs” in São Paulo learned that catalog the way every other guitarist did, as a kid, and then spent most of his working life next to the guy who sang it first.

Zakk Sabbath is older than the ending

Zakk Sabbath’s chronology gets misread. It is not a memorial project. It started in 2014, eleven years before Osbourne’s last show, as a covers band, and then it grew a discography of its own, which is a strange thing for a covers band to do. Vertigo (2020) is Black Sabbath’s 1970 debut re-recorded fifty years later, start to finish. Doomed Forever Forever Doomed followed in 2024 (Blabbermouth). There is a “Fairies Wear Boots” single too (Blabbermouth).

It has also been to Brazil before. Zakk Sabbath played São Paulo in 2024 at Best of Blues and Rock, on 22 June, at Parque do Ibirapuera (Billboard Brasil, Wikimetal). The two sets are what is new on 18 October.

The weight changed anyway. On 5 July 2025, Wylde was on the bill at Back to the Beginning at Villa Park, Osbourne’s final concert, where the original four were together for the first time in twenty years and tickets went in under ten minutes. Wylde’s own description of his night there was modest: “we’re going to play with the boss”, a couple of songs with Osbourne, then sit down and watch the band (The Star). Every act on that bill played Black Sabbath songs (Blabbermouth). Fifteen months later, a project that was a loud hobby in 2014 is one of the places that catalog still gets played live.

What the São Paulo warm-up already showed

The Brazilian run is a Black Label Society tour: Curitiba 10/10, Belo Horizonte 13/10, Brasília 15/10, Rio 17/10, São Paulo 18/10, Limeira 20/10, with Dark Chapel opening every date (Rolling Stone Brasil, full itinerary on our shows page). Sitting inside it was a standalone Zakk Sabbath headline show in São Paulo, 11 October at Carioca Club, and that one has already happened.

The crowd logged twelve songs, 20:55 to 22:30, with “War Pigs”, “Children of the Grave” and “Snowblind” in it (setlist.fm). One absence is worth flagging, carefully. On the American run earlier this month, bassist John DeServio opened “N.I.B.” with a solo nodding to Geezer Butler’s “Bassically” (the original album’s bass intro, played in its original slot), and setlist.fm logs “Bassically” as its own entry on 2 and 4 October. It is not logged for 11 October in São Paulo. Crowd-sourced setlists are weak evidence of absence, so this stays a question. But it is the detail I would watch for on the 18th, because it is the clearest instrumental sign of what this band actually is: Wylde’s bassist stepping into Butler’s part rather than skipping it.

How a catalog travels now

Zakk Sabbath’s standing lineup is Wylde with Robert “Blasko” Nicholson on bass and Joey Castillo on drums. For the American winter run that started on 30 October 2025, DeServio (Black Label Society’s bassist) took over, because Blasko had rejoined Rob Zombie, with Jeff Fabb, Black Label Society’s drummer, covering Castillo (No Treble, Blabbermouth). Which means that, on the American run, Black Sabbath’s songbook was traveling inside the touring body of Black Label Society, with Black Label Society’s rhythm section playing it. Whether that is the configuration arriving in Brazil, nobody outside the tour has said.

There is a second double-duty case on this run that is confirmed. Dario Lorina, Black Label Society’s second guitarist, fronts the opening act Dark Chapel (Metal na Lata). He opens the show in his own band and then comes back for somebody else’s set.

That is a different model from the one the big legacy bands use. The usual route is a brand that outlives its lineup, touring with whoever is available and an original member onstage. What is happening here is smaller and stranger: the catalog lives in a crew. Four or five people who know both bodies of material do two jobs in a night, and the 1970s songs ride along in the van of a band formed in 1998.

What I want to know on the 19th

Two things, both answerable by looking.

First: which project closes. The event page does not say, and it matters. Finishing on Black Label Society makes the night a show by a working band that happens to do covers. Finishing on the Black Sabbath material makes it something closer to a wake, fifteen months after Villa Park. It is the same four or five people for the same two hours, and a completely different evening either way.

Second: whether the “Bassically” intro shows up. If DeServio plays Butler’s bass figure in São Paulo, the lineage is onstage and audible without anyone having to narrate it.

And a bigger thread, which the next piece can pull: Zakk Sabbath plays the 1970s material. Wylde also co-wrote a sizeable chunk of Osbourne’s solo catalog, including most of No More Tears. There is no band currently touring that body of work, and the man who wrote the riffs is onstage twice in one night playing everything except it. If you were building the set, where would “Miracle Man” go?

@realrocklab, Threads or X.

Sources: Clube do Ingresso: event page · Rolling Stone Brasil · Billboard Brasil: 2026 tour · Billboard Brasil: Best of Blues and Rock 2024 · Wikimetal · setlist.fm: Zakk Sabbath · No Treble · Blabbermouth: Zakk Sabbath fall tour · Blabbermouth: Doomed Forever Forever Doomed · Blabbermouth: “Fairies Wear Boots” · Blabbermouth: Villa Park bill · The Star: Zakk Wylde interview · Guitar World · Metal na Lata · Wikipedia: Zakk Wylde