Black Sabbath Announces Warm-Up Show

Even rock legends need to make time for practice, so in order to work out the kinks before their summer reunion shows, Black Sabbath have scheduled an intimate warm-up show at the O2 Academy in Birmingham, England.

The gig is penciled in for May 19, a few weeks before the band's planned headlining set at the Download Festival over the weekend of June 8-10. According to the NME's report, the set list may make room for some of the new songs Sabbath has been working on in the studio with producer Rick Rubin.

Guitarist Tony Iommi, who's battle with lymphoma forced the band to cancel the majority of their planned reunion world tour, is scheduled to appear -- but there's still no word on the involvement of drummer Bill Ward, who fell out with his bandmates almost immediately after the reunion was announced and has been holding out for a better contract.

As the NME points out, Sabbath has said they'll move on without Ward, but they haven't announced a replacement yet, so there's still some hope that he'll be behind the drums when the band takes the stage again -- and walking out together at the O2 Academy would certainly be a dramatic way of announcing that fences have been mended.