Yungblud's biggest year: a Grammy for Ozzy and a festival going global

We shot Yungblud at Sziget in 2023, and the thing that stuck with us was not the set, it was the crowd. Not a field of people who liked a couple of songs. A front-to-back room of diehards who knew every word and looked out for each other. We did not have a name for it at the time. Yungblud does: the Black Hearts Club, named after the fans who got matching black heart tattoos on their fingers. Once you have stood in front of that crowd, the rest of his career makes sense.

Why he is everywhere now

Start with the obvious. His album Idols went straight to number one in the UK last June, his third UK number one in a row. At this year's Grammys he became the first British artist to land three nominations in the rock categories in a single year, and he won Best Rock Performance. In February he kept the run going with Idols II, six new tracks bolted on. None of that lands without a crowd that turns up the way his does.

The Ozzy of it all

Here is the part that gives the year its shape. The Grammy he won was not for one of his own songs. It was for a cover of Black Sabbath's Changes. Yungblud and Ozzy Osbourne had been close for years, and Ozzy turned up in the video for Yungblud's 2022 single The Funeral. On 5 July 2025, Yungblud sang Changes at Back to the Beginning in Villa Park, Birmingham, which turned out to be Ozzy's last ever show. Ozzy died a few weeks later.

So when he won, it meant something. Yungblud dedicated the award to Ozzy, and he has said he will play Changes at every show from now on to keep honouring him. A friendship turned into a tribute, and the tribute became the biggest moment of his career.

A festival for the Black Hearts Club

If the Black Hearts Club is a feeling, Bludfest is the address. Yungblud built his own festival in 2024 at Milton Keynes Bowl, thirty thousand fans, tickets at fifty pounds. It was his answer to a live scene he felt had priced young fans out, a day he called the biggest gathering of our culture. It came back bigger in 2025.

Going international

In 2026 it leaves the UK for the first time. Bludfest lands at Park 360 in Hradec Kralove, in the Czech Republic, on 27 June, with Biffy Clyro, Primal Scream, Palaye Royale, Pale Waves and Jesse Jo Stark, and on-site camping for the first time. That is a bigger move than another arena tour. A cheap, fan-first festival crossing a border says he wants to export the idea, not just the name.

We caught him in 2023 as a kid who already had a congregation. He is now a Grammy winner with his own festival and Ozzy's song in his set every night. His crowd saw all of it coming first.