This Day in 2015: Black Sabbath at the Ivor Novello Awards

Time flies: as of today, it’s officially been four years since Black Sabbath were presented with the prestigious lifetime achievement prize at the Ivor Novello songwriting awards ceremony.

The award, which was presented to the band by Queen guitarist Brian May, was accepted by band members Tony Iommi, Bill Ward, and Geezer Butler. Upon stepping up to the microphone, Ward declared, “It’s been a good 40 years. At least, I think it has. It’s been a fantastic journey so far, and hopefully will continue to be.”

To be fair, Ward’s presence was at least a little bit of a surprise, given that he’d stepped away from the band’s 2012 reunion due to contractual matters which seemingly did not meet his satisfaction. That said, he continued to reiterate in interviews during that period that he had no less love for his bandmates as a result of the legal wranglings going on between them.

At the same time, Ozzy Osbourne’s absence from the ceremony was not a surprise, and it was presumed to be directly tied to Ward, who had said that he’d return to Black Sabbath if Ozzy apologized for some of the less-than-gentile remarks he’d made about Ward. Not entirely surprisingly, Ozzy’s retort involved further words from the same general realm, and…well, here we are.

No, seriously, that’s still where we are: when Black Sabbath were awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy earlier this month, Iommi, Ward, and Butler were there…and Ozzy was not.