During a September 16 appearance on SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”, legendary rocker Sammy Hagar reflected on his participation in the “Back To The Beginning” charity event on July 5 at Villa Park in Birmingham, United Kingdom, which marked Ozzy Osbourne and BLACK SABBATH‘s final performance. Sammy sang the 1981 Ozzy classic “Flying High Again”, joined by a supergroup that featured EXTREME‘s Nuno Bettencourt, LIVING COLOUR‘s Vernon Reid, TOOL‘s Adam Jones, bassist Rudy Sarzo, and RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS drummer Chad Smith. After the song, Reid left the stage as event music director Tom Morello joined the other musicians for a cover of “Rock Candy”, a track from the 1973 self-titled debut by MONTROSE, Hagar‘s first band.

Regarding his experience at “Back To The Beginning”, Sammy told host Eddie Trunk: “That event was amazing. There were quite a few magical moments, I’ve gotta tell you. And, of course, Ozzy‘s thing was magic — BLACK SABBATH, my god, that was just magic. But Yungblud, that dude is a bad, bad young boy. He is the man. That guy is gonna be the next big superstar, if he isn’t already. I mean, he’s frickin’ huge, but he’s Mick Jagger and Freddie Mercury reincarnated. Man, this guy is just — he was so good. I was so blown away by his performance. And the other person that was really impressive in that whole thing was Nuno Bettencourt. Nuno Bettencourt played with almost everyone, and he killed it. Every song that he played, he brought it. Tom Morello played a lot of the stuff too, and Tom‘s good, but he’s a different kind of player. Tom‘s got his own really unique style to where Nuno, he adapted to everybody’s style. And, yeah, it was really good. And Billy Corgan from THE (SMASHING) PUMPKINS. Billy was great. I mean, when he did (JUDAS PRIEST‘s) ‘Breaking The Law’, it was so badass. (Laughs) I don’t know why, but it was really, really cool. It was a great event.”

Hagar continued: “Those were highlights for me because they were kind of unexpected. I love Billy, but I didn’t know he was that kind of performer without a guitar and stuff, and he was fronting that band and he was killing it. They had all them drummers. Oh my God, man. The drum-off between Chad (Smith), Danny Carey and Travis Barker — wow. I mean, those three cats can play. And it was just really an unbelievable event. No one was ego tripping. No one was trying to blow anybody off the stage or anything like that. It was just all good.”

Sammy went on to say that he was unhappy with his own performance of “Flying High Again”, despite having had several weeks to prepare for the show. “I was very disappointed in myself because I thought I learned ‘Flying High Again’,” he admitted. “I said, ‘I don’t use a teleprompter, I never use teleprompters.’ And I said, ‘I’m not gonna use a teleprompter.’ And they said, ‘Well, we’ll put up there just in case.’ I said, ‘No, you watch this.’ I thought I had it memorized. I was distracted right before I go on by a bunch of people. I’m standing on the side of stage waiting for ’em to do the set change after the drum-off, and I’m going, ‘Oh, yeah.’ I’m talking to people. All of a sudden I hear ’em announce me, and I was 50 yards from the stage. And my wife Kari‘s going, ‘Oh, my God. They just announced you.’ And I’m going, ‘Oh, shit.’ And I go running out. And I’m walking around. And they start the song, and I go, ‘Hey,’ blah, blah, blah. And then I step out on the ramp and I go, ‘Holy shit.’ … I missed that whole thing. And I’m running back looking for the fricking teleprompter. And, of course, the lyrics are moving faster than I’m singing them. But I got it together after that. But, man, if you wanna talk about having your private parts shrink up in front that crowd, that opportunity. And I choked. Sammy Hagar is a pro. Man, he choked, that fucker. So, anyway, then ‘Rock Candy’ was great. Well, that song (‘Flying High Again’) was great too, after we got it going. And the band came in backwards on the intro too, and so it was even crazier.”

According to Hagar, it was “an honor to have been asked to be on that show. And everyone was there for Ozzy and for BLACK SABBATH,” he said. “They were there for the right reasons. And anybody that wasn’t asked to be on that show, I know they’re pissed. I have a couple friends that were, like, ‘Man, well, they didn’t ask me.’ And I’m going, ‘Hey, listen, it wasn’t my choice.’ I took the phone call (from Tom Morello) and said, ‘Yep.'”

Asked by Trunk if he knew Ozzy well and whether he had a chance to speak to the BLACK SABBATH singer at “Back To The Beginning”, Sammy said: “No, I didn’t know him that well, but we were user friendly a lot of times. If we had run into each other at award shows, things like that, it was always a big hug and go out of your way to go over and say hi. But no, I wasn’t that close with Ozzy, like I am with some of these other guys. But, yeah. I got to talk to him (at Villa Park). When we took the picture (of all the musicians the day before the event), I went over and held his hand and told him how much I love him. He looked me right in the eye and he was, ‘Thank you, mate, for being here,’ and all that stuff. And it was just a conversation like that. Everyone was trying to get a piece of him, so I left him alone after that. I just had to hold his hand and kiss the ring, because he was there.”

Hagar also praised Osbourne for getting through “Back To The Beginning” and performing both with his solo band and BLACK SABBATH when Ozzy was clearly not in the best of health. “The fact that he pulled that off, I’ll say it again, for the rest of my life I’ll say it, there’s a rocker,” Sammy said. “There’s a dedicated rock star. There’s a person that’s dedicated to their fans. There’s a person that gave it all, because he was that close to death and he still did that. Man, I would’ve canceled that show if I had a cold. You know what I mean? It’s, like, wow. Unbelievable. He raised the bar so high. No one’s legacy is ever gonna top that ,unless they go out on stage. I mean, that’s the only way to top what he did. He was sick, and, man, he pulled it off. He said hi to everyone. He took all the photos, he did the soundchecks, he did the photo sessions, he did the rehearsals, and then he did the fricking show and no one thought he was gonna do that show. All of us, a week or two before, all of us, we all were just quietly going, ‘Mm. I don’t think it’s gonna happen.’ I’m sitting here talking to other musicians that are on the show. ‘You think Ozzy‘s gonna make it?’ I say, ‘I don’t know, man. Shit, I hope so. But I don’t know.'”

Hagar continued: “Knowing Ozzy Osbourne — now we’re getting dark — but everyone that knows Ozzy and knows his history about the darkness and he’s always been a cultish thing, we kind of thought quietly, we all thought quietly, ‘He’s gonna go out on stage. He’s planning this. He’s planning his own death.’ I swear. I hate to be dark like that, but I thought, if anybody is gonna do something like that, it’s Ozzy Osbourne. And he made it. And then he lasted a couple of weeks. And God bless him, man.”

Sammy also talked about how he felt when he heard the news that Ozzy had passed on July 22 — a little over two weeks after “Back To The Beginning”. He said: “The fact that I wasn’t that close to Ozzy — we weren’t dear friends; we didn’t have each other’s phone numbers and stuff like that — man, it really affected me. It really hurt, because I was there (at that final show). And it was touching. I’ve gotta tell you. Every time somebody dies, you feel it, in this business, but certain ones really are tough. And Ozzy was tougher for me than I would’ve thought.”