Tour news: Black Sabbath's final show won't be in NZ after all

Rockers Black Sabbath.

Heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath have announced a slew of new concerts as the band extends a 2016 tour that it insists will be its last.

Ozzy Osbourne's band, previously scheduled to call it quits in April in New Zealand, will play across Europe and North America throughout the summer.

The final concert is now scheduled to take place on September 21 in Phoenix, Arizona.

The tour - dubbed The End - opens on January 20 elsewhere in the United States, in Omaha.

It will reach Auckland's Vector Arena on April 28, and Dunedin's Forsyth Barr Stadium on April 30.

Even though the band originated in Birmingham, England, only one concert is scheduled in Britain - at the Download heavy metal festival in the English Midlands.

The new dates include shows on Jones Beach, a popular summer venue outside New York City, and at the Hollywood Bowl ampitheatre in Los Angeles.

Black Sabbath said in a statement that the new shows came in response to "overwhelming demand" and insisted the tour would mark the definitive end of the band.

Black Sabbath, with its thunderous guitars and keen interest in the occult and other dark subject matter, helped create heavy metal in the early 1970s.

While 66-year-old Osbourne has gone on to a successful solo career with his famously sensational shows, guitarist Tony Iommi in recent years has battled cancer, clouding previous talk of a reunion.

The End will reunite Osbourne, Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler, who has been the band's primary lyricist, but not longtime drummer Bill Ward, who is believed to have a bad relationship with Osbourne.

- AFP