Black Sabbath play their final show in their home city

Black Sabbath have played what they say is their last ever concert, bringing the curtain down on a career of nearly 50 years in the city where it all began.

The band ended their farewell tour, The End, with two shows at the Genting Arena in Birmingham on 2 and 4 February. The final night was the last stop on a world tour that started in January 2016.

Back where they started

It was a fitting place to finish. Black Sabbath were formed in Aston in 1968 by guitarist Tony Iommi, drummer Bill Ward, bassist Geezer Butler and singer Ozzy Osbourne. Iommi and Ward had been looking to form a heavy blues rock band after their previous group, Mythology, broke up, and they found Osbourne through an advertisement he had placed in a local music shop, which read: "OZZY ZIG Needs Gig - has own PA".

The band went through several names, including the Polka Tulk Blues Band and Earth, before settling on Black Sabbath in 1969. Their early gigs included shows at Henry's Blueshouse, a club at the Crown in the city centre run by Jim Simpson, who became their first manager.

Inventing heavy metal

With their down-tuned guitars, horror-inspired lyrics and crushing riffs, Black Sabbath are widely credited as pioneers of heavy metal. Their first three albums, Black Sabbath and Paranoid, both released in 1970, and Master of Reality in 1971, are regarded as landmark records. Paranoid went to number one in the UK album chart, and its title track reached number four as a single, the band's only top ten hit.

The band have sold more than 70 million records. They were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

Many line-ups

The band's history has been far from settled. Osbourne was fired in 1979 and replaced by Ronnie James Dio, and over the following years Iommi led Black Sabbath through a long series of line-up changes, with singers including Ian Gillan, Glenn Hughes and Tony Martin.

The original four reunited in 1997 and toured on and off until 2005. They came together again in 2011, although Ward left before the recording of the album 13, which was released in 2013 and gave the band their first UK number one album in decades. He did not take part in the farewell tour.

The end?

The band announced in September 2015 that The End would be their final tour. Iommi, who has been undergoing treatment for cancer, has said that he does not intend to tour again, although he has not ruled out writing and recording in the future.

For the thousands of fans who packed into the arena over the two nights, many of them from Birmingham, the concerts were a chance to say goodbye to a band that put the city on the map of rock music. Few bands can claim to have invented a whole genre, and fewer still get to end their story in their own home town.