What began as a celebration of Ozzy Osbourne changed last month into a traveling electric funeral with more and more tears.
The timing couldn’t be better for fans of the Prince of Darkness with tribute act Crazy Train making its Rockin’ on the River debut Sept. 5 at Black River Landing.
“I’ll tell you right now, for any Ozzy fan, it’s been just really tough,” said Crazy Train singer Vinny Cormier, calling from Bangor, Maine. “The day that he passed away, I was wondering if I could still do this. It’s still hard. A couple of weeks ago, the first show after he passed away, there were times I’d be singing and I could see a person crying in the audience and I’d get choked up.
“I couldn’t spit out the words. I just kind of mumbled through some of the lyrics because I was getting emotional. It took me two shows to get back into what I’m usually doing, but it’s still weird right now for everybody.”
This is especially true considering two weeks prior to his passing, Black Sabbath held its “Back to the Beginning” final show with Osbourne sitting on his bat throne singing away. While going in fans knew this was his last time performing, what they didn’t know was he would be coming home soon thereafter.
“It just happened so quick,” he said. “Ozzy did his final concert. We actually canceled a gig because every Ozzy fan was going to be in front of the TV and we’re going to end up playing in an empty house. I thought he looked pretty cool. He still looked like he’s got a lot of fight in him. Then two and a half weeks later, that was it.”
While, ironically, Cormier never saw Osbourne in concert, he does cite Black Sabbath’s debut effort for getting him into music.
In fact, the singer’s reflection on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee act mirrors that of similar fan experiences.
“The very first album I bought with my own money was ‘Paranoid,’” he said. “I listened to ‘Iron Man’ and then listened to the rest of it, which scared the living daylights out of me. That whole album was freaking me out. I was really scared of it, but I couldn’t stop listening to it. It was like watching a horror movie. That’s how that first album affected me.”
A touring musician for nearly a half-century, Cormier’s resume includes stints with Molly Hatchet, Eddie Money, Blue Öyster Cult, Quiet Riot, Steve Perry, Kansas and Marshall Tucker.
However, it was four years ago when he and his son, Dylan, decided to create a tribute act with the young guitarist playing the role of Zakk Wylde.
What they landed on was Crazy Train, which presents the 1993 “Live & Loud” era with career retrospective set of Osbourne tunes.
“He’s got 10 hits from Black Sabbath and about 10 hits that everybody else knows in his solo career,” he said. “It got to the point when we were doing three-hour shows, and the only deep cut that we did was ‘Diary of a Madman.’ It’s amazing the catalog that he built in his career.”
As far as the band’s upcoming Lorain County debut, Cormier said let the grieving begin.
“Before we were an Ozzy tribute band,” he said. “Now, we’re an Ozzy celebration life band. There’s only one Ozzy, and there will only be one Ozzy but he’s gone now. Hopefully, I can at least try to fill that void for fans struggling as I am.
It will give them a chance to feel like, yeah, he’s gone, but his music is always going to stay alive. He’s going to be telling me all about life or what I need to hear to console my soul. Hopefully, that’s what I can do.”
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