I was recently asked about the bass played during Live Aid. Yes, I still have it - It's a custom BC Rich, only ever played it at Live Aid - I whacked my thumb on that sharp edge, and could hardly play the bloody thing, it went right into my nerve and my whole hand went numb. pic.twitter.com/JGfQ3GNqBT
— Geezer Butler (@geezerbutler) May 4, 2020
Geezer Butler says that he still has the bass guitar that he played during BLACK SABBATH's appearance at the Live Aid festival three and a half decades ago.
The July 13, 1985 concert in Philadelphia saw Butler, guitarist Tony Iommi, singer Ozzy Osbourne and drummer Bill Ward reunite for a three-song set consisting of some of their best-loved classics, "Children Of The Grave", "Iron Man" and "Paranoid". The original lineup of SABBATH would again reunite in November 1992 at a Costa Mesa, California Ozzy Osbourne show, and then in December 1997 for two concerts in Birmingham, England, which were recorded and released as the double album "Reunion".
Earlier today, Butler tweeted out a photo of the bass guitar he used at the Live Aid show and he included the following message: "I was recently asked about the bass played during Live Aid. Yes, I still have it - It's a custom BC Rich, only ever played it at Live Aid - I whacked my thumb on that sharp edge, and could hardly play the bloody thing, it went right into my nerve and my whole hand went numb."
A founding member of BLACK SABBATH, Butler is also the lyricist of such SABBATH classics as "War Pigs", "Iron Man", "Paranoid" and others.
Butler, Osbourne and Iommi reunited in late 2011 and released a comeback album, "13", in June 2013.
In February 2017, SABBATH finished "The End" tour in Birmingham, closing out the quartet's groundbreaking 49-year career.
"The End" was SABBATH's last tour because Iommi, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2012 and is currently in remission, can no longer travel for extended amounts of time.
