Dio - At Donington UK: Live 1983 & 1987

When I was but a wee bairn growing up in The Crossroads Of The Northeast, I was a pretty big Dio fan. Upper echelon metalheads favored Maiden and Dio back patches/paintings and I wanted in. I taped Holy Diver from the kid across the street and I'm pretty sure I had The Last In Line. As I was almost failing out of 7th grade via a pronounced MTV obsession, the videos for Holy Diver and Rainbow In The Dark provided much of the blame. Looking at the videos now, it's funny to think how silly they are (and how damn short Ronnie was) but you can't dispute that those are great fucking songs and that Mr. Ronnie James Dio could sing his fucking ass off. I came late to the game on the Sabbath stuff and to this day haven't listened to a Dio Rainbow record, but one focusing solely on Dio solo material would have more than enough corroboration to assert Ronnie as one of the greats.

There has been much Dio love bandied about since his passing. And rightfully so. Ronnie was widely held as the nicest guy in metal and his passing has taken down one of the pillars that buttress all that is true about metal. With the lack of any new material to release, Wendy Dio has dipped into the vaults and blessed us with this double disc of Donington sets from the prime Dio years of 1983 and 1987. Sweet jeebus! Ronnie James Dio sings his diminutive ass off in both of these sets. For the uninitiated, those who care, and the rest who should, the 1983 set features the classic Bain/Appice rhythm section with a raging young Vivian Campbell on guitar while the 1987 set features the trial by fire live debut of Craig Goldy. Nice. I'm a much bigger fan of Campbell, but Goldy tears it up as well, and playing that well in front of a Donington crowd for your debut performance is certainly commendable. The set covers the breadth of the Dio canon circa the late 80s. Ok, there are no Elf songs, but know that Man On The Silver Mountain and Neon Knights both appear in the set, as do a couple other chestnuts that I think you'll enjoy. Personally, I would buy it immediately. You may feel otherwise, but then again you would be wrong. Pour out a little liquor in the holiday season for one of the good ones who died way too soon.

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R.I.P: Ronnie James Dio (1942-2010)

I was hanging out at the Chelsea Hotel on a rare rehearsal-free Sunday when I heard the news that Dio had passed. Needless to say, it was a bummer to hear that one of metal's pre-eminent vocalist and nicest guys had lost his battle with stomach cancer. He had been on That Metal Show in the last couple months with Geezer to promote the Heaven And Hell record and was his usual charming, funny self, trading top-notch banter with the TMS guys and doing a hysterical job of skewering most recent drummer Vinny Appice.

During that same episode, Jamieson related the usual story you would hear: Dio talked with his middle-aged not-especially-metal brother-in-law at length and was as charming as he would be for his record company president. I never met him firsthand, but have heard hundreds of variations of that same story since I was a kid. He seemed to be a genuinely great guy and its a shame that he passed and douches like Weiland still walk this Earth.

That douchely pointed out, I first saw Dio in the Holy Diver video when I was but a wee bairn. It was probably on MTV, although there is the slight chance it was on HBO Video Jukebox. Either way, it was a big moment for my young aspiring metalhead self. Vivian Campbell was playing his ass off and while the video was silly, it was much more so in retrospect, but still pretty damn cool. I was ignorant of Sabbath (or Elf, for that matter) at that point, but managed to see him live soonish afterward where I both marvelled at how small he was (an epiphany on the level of Halford's homosexuality that was and is staggeringly obvious that I question my powers of perception) and saw him fight a laser dragon to my great delight.

Later on I saw him headline at Irving, as well as playing on a staggeringly awesome show at The Garden sandwiched between Motorhead and the headlining reunited Bruce Dickinson-helmed Maiden. The show was arena metal at its finest and translated well to the late-century era. The only shortcoming was that technology had reduced the time honored double rows of keyboards to a single improbably small MIDI controller that really took a lot of the visual effect off of songs like Rainbow In The Dark, but still rocked your ass soundly. Craig Goldie was in the lead guitar slot and I'm embarassed that I'm not sure if it was Jeff Pilson in the bass slot. Dio was in ridiculously good vocal form for a man his age and had the crowd in the palm of his devil-horned hand like he was the top dog of the proceedings. I hadn't seen of heard his last couple Dio records, but was pleasantly surprised to find the reunited Heaven And Hell actually weren't all that terrible. The tour did well enough that Heaven And Hell seemed to be the top priority for all the parties for the next couple years.

Internet and That Metal Show had reported Ronnie's cancer six months or so ago, but Eddie Trunk had reported that Ronnie had booked shows for the upcoming Summer and recent bassist Rudy Sarzo had reported pretty much the same on TMS a couple months ago, but evidently things took a turn for worse and he passed at 7:45 on the morning of 5/16. It's a shame. Ronnie James Dio was one of the true masters of metal and one who deserves to be inducted posthumously into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in short order. There being very little justice in this world, I can't see it happening, but we can only hope. Keep him and Wendy in your thoughts and be sure to play Dio, Sabbath and Heaven And Hell in his honor for years to come.

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