Kendrick Lamar and SZA to bring tour to Villa Park

Kendrick Lamar and SZA are to bring their Grand National Tour to Villa Park, after performing in Sunday's Super Bowl half-time show.

The US rapper and singer-songwriter are due in Birmingham on 10 July and will visit Cardiff's Principality Stadium, Glasgow's Hampden Park and the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the same month.

Villa Park' s summer schedule includes Guns N' Roses in June and Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath reuniting one last time at a one-day festival in July featuring bands they inspired.

An X post from Aston Villa Football Club about Kendrick Lamar and SZA has been viewed 4.2 million times.

One user of the social media platform said of the football stadium gig: "Massive news for Villa Park!... this one's gonna be special."

Another stated Villa's "peak seems never ending".

It was Lamar's second time on the Super Bowl half-time stage, having previously appeared in his hometown of Los Angeles in 2022.

European and UK tour dates, which include visits to Germany, Portugal and Spain, follow an extensive US and Canadian leg of the tour set to begin in April.

The tour will see SZA return to the UK after headlining Glastonbury Festival and London's British Summer Time in Hyde Park last year.

Guns N' Roses will play Villa Park on 23 June as part of the band's 2025 European and Middle East tour

A fundraising concert on 5 July will mark the first time that Black Sabbath's original line-up - Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward - have played together in 20 years.

The heavy metal pioneers will headline the one-day festival featuring dozens of bands they inspired, including Metallica, Pantera, Slayer, Gojira and Anthrax.

Osbourne, who has largely been forced to stop touring due to a combination of Parkinson's disease and spinal injuries, will play a short solo set before joining his bandmates.

Asked about people being in Birmingham when the concert takes place, West Midlands Growth Company's head of tourism, Becky Frall, said "we've already seen a spike in forward bookings for the Ozzy [date]".

She added everyone had got "really quick off the draw" and she thought they were "sort of anticipating their ticket".

"Already when we have press tours in, when we show tour operators around, everyone wants to go and see Ozzy [the] bull in New Street station," Ms Frall said.

"Everyone wants to go and get their photo taken on the Black Sabbath Bridge on the bench there.

"The Home of Metal festival has for many years brought in international visitors who are really engaged with that metal scene so we've got a brilliant heritage there."

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