I never knew just how much I needed to see a Billy Strings and Black Sabbath crossover jam, and now, I’m here to share it with you. Strings delivered his genre-bending performance at a 2022 Halloween show in Asheville, North Carolina. With the entire band clad in Lord of the Rings costumes, Strings not only offered the crowd a stunning blend of bluegrass and metal.
He also did it while wearing pointy ears and fake hobbit feet. Working hard or hardly working, Frodo?
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An Amazing Billy Strings and Black Sabbath Mash-up
Billy Strings and his incomparable bluegrass band performed three back-to-back shows in Asheville, North Carolina, to celebrate Halloween 2022. Their “Away From The Shire” trilogy featured everything you might expect from a Halloween-themed Strings show: costumes, light shows, and, of course, ripping guitar riffs. But Strings (a.k.a. Billy Baggins) proved he had plenty of scarily good tricks up his sleeve when he busted out a 1970 Black Sabbath classic, “War Pigs.”
The two distinct parts of “War Pigs” offered the perfect medium for Strings to show off just how well he can work his way around a six-string, whether his typical acoustic or, in this song’s case, an electric Les Paul. From the sludgy first half of “War Pigs” to the lightning-fast jams of “Luke’s Wall” in the second half, Strings paid a perfect homage to the iconic track. While he took some creative liberties here and there (hello, banjo), for the most part, Strings overwhelmingly stayed true to Tony Iommi’s original riffs.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?
A Scarily Good, Multi-Genre Performance
I’ve always said that bluegrass and heavy metal are two sides of the same musical coin. Both genres prioritize technical proficiency and speed, many songs in either category discuss religious, anti-establishment, or macabre themes, and both genres have amassed a well-deserved, devoted fanbase. On Halloween night, 2022, Billy Strings and his band’s face-melting cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” proved that one need not choose between one musical style or the other.
The roaring crowd’s response to the genre mash-up that night speaks for itself. But even years later, fans are still blown away by Strings’ musicality and respect for the 1970 original. “I really appreciate his, ‘if I likes it, I plays it,’ attitude,” one YouTuber commented. “Insane talent that passes the cool test, covering Sabbath while dressed as a tricksy hobbit. Guy just keeps getting more awesome every time I listen,” wrote another.
Others commented on how exciting it was to watch Strings, who typically plays (and rips) on acoustic guitar, on electric. The latter guitar style allows for even quicker movements and finer nuances up and down the fretboard, something that Strings was able to run with while covering heavy metal band Black Sabbath. “Letting Billy use an electric guitar is like letting Mike Tyson bring a baseball bat into the ring,” one commenter suggested.
“I didn’t realize The Shire had such a great metal scene,” another added. Me neither, but I’m here for it.
Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/WireImage