Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi said he thinks bandmate Ozzy Osbourne was "determined" to play the group's farewell show and "really just held out" to do so weeks before his death.

Sykes appeared on Thin Lizzy's harder-edged 1983 album Thunder and Lightning, the group's Top 5 U.K. hit studio finale with the late frontman Phil Lynott. Sykes then joined Whitesnake for a two-album mid-'80s stint that began with the reworked 1984 edition of Slide It In.