The Ronnie James DIO thread

[TAC]

The only songs I like from Angry Machines are Big Sister, Double Monday, and Hunter of the Heart.
I'm surprised no one else has mentioned any of those songs, good or bad.

Other than the songs I mentioned, the rest suck!

As for strange Highways, I don't think the style is really all THAT different from the earlier Dio albums, other than that he is maybe a little more straight-forward with his opinions about some things in the lyrics.

Interesting observation about the lyrics. I agree with that.

Tracy G. brought his own style to Dio's music. It was far less melodic.

[WebRaider]

Big fan of most all of Dio's material and probably the biggest fan of Strange Highways on the board. It feels a lot like the brother of Dehumanizer and I really really dig both. A little more aggressive sounding than his usual material but to me he wasn't out of his element with it. RJD really had one of the golden voices for metal period IMO. 

[bl5150]

For some reason I never even bothered with any of the post 1990 Dio albums aside from Killing The Dragon and Magica.   It doesn't sound like I'm missing too much.

[jjrock88]

Five years later, Ronnie is still the man!!

[Evermind]

Five years later, Ronnie is still the man!!

Hell yeah.

Kind of a weird coincidence how two my favourite musicians in the world both died at 16th: Dio in May, Jon Lord in July.

[Lowdz]

With Rising, heaven & Hell and Holy Diver he was probably as responsible as anyone for getting me into metal and for that I thank the man.
Legend.

[Bertielee]

With Rising, heaven & Hell and Holy Diver he was probably as responsible as anyone for getting me into metal and for that I thank the man.
Legend.

Two albums got me into metal : Holy Diver and Kings of Metal by Manowar. So yeah, thanks RJD!

B.Lee

[bosk1]

Not "Dio," strictly speaking, but this seemed like the most appropriate thread.  This last weekend, I had the opportunity to see Last In Line when a friend of mine told me he scored free tickets.  For those who don't know, Last In Line isn't a "cover band," but is a band formed by all the original members of Dio other than Ronnie himself to perform the Dio classics.  Obviously, they had to replace the singer.  Through the years, they also had to replace Jimmy Bain when he passed away, and they replaced keyboard player Claude Schell for reasons I do not know.

Anyhow, they put on a really good show.  I never managed to see Dio.  They were a band where I appreciated the talent, and I liked some of the hits and a few deep cuts, but never really embraced them as one of my favorite bands.  But I always admired Vivian's guitar playing in particular, and I thought it was pretty cool that he was the spark behind Hear N Aid.  I was stoked when I heard he joined Def Leppard, and as much as I loved Hysteria, I was really excited for the prospect of him bringing them back to their heavier roots.  Obviously, that didn't end up happening.

It was so cool to see Vivian and Vinny playing these old songs.  Vivian was especially fun to watch.  And he has such a distinct style and phrasing where you can distinguish his playing from other guitarists. 

Their new singer is no slouch either.  He wasn't exactly a Dio clone, but he did the songs justice.  I posted a couple of clips below (not mine).  He wasn't perfect.  There were times when he was a bit flat or sharp.  But he never for a moment appeared to strain or struggle, which is impressive when singing an entire set of Dio material.  Some of the notes he was hitting and holding toward the END of the set were really impressive.  He actually seemed to get measurably better as the set went on.  You can kind of pick that up from the clips below, with Holy Diver being near the beginning of the set and We Rock being at the end (although We Rock isn't the most challenging compared to some of the other songs).

Holy Diver:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBbf6C9XHOA
We Rock:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6ROGohYSO4

[wolfking]

For some reason I never even bothered with any of the post 1990 Dio albums aside from Killing The Dragon and Magica.   It doesn't sound like I'm missing too much.

I really like both those albums, especially Magica.  That one always struck a cord with me.

[TAC]

Killing The Dragon only gets points for being better than most of the other shit he put out. I feel like I am dropping my standards to accept that as a decent Dio album.

[bl5150]

Aldrich is a great guitarist but , with the odd exception , he's a pretty one dimensional song writer IMHO.  He rarely puts out anything bad but he also rarely writes something amazing.

[TAC]

Aldrich is a great guitarist but , with the odd exception , he's a pretty one dimensional song writer IMHO.  He rarely puts out anything bad but he also rarely writes something amazing.

With Goldy and Aldrich, there's absolutely no style, or impact on Dio's music. That's why I can't really stand them in that spot. Traci G, while sucking, at least was unique and impacted Dio's sound. Strange Highways has aged wonderfully.

That later Dio band was really so vanilla. I am not a fan of Vinnie Appice, but he added personality to the music, as did Jimmy Bain, who I feel is underrated. Simon Wright and Rudy Sarzo, while technically proficient, brought nothing to the band. With no strong creative personalities in the band, the music really suffered.

[Mladen]

As far as later day Dio albums go, I thought Master of the moon was very good. Even that Heaven and hell album was pretty decent. 

[MirrorMask]

Master of the Moon is indeed good! there are quite some notable songs there (One More for the Road, Master of the Moon, I Am, The Eyes...)

[TAC]

I thought it was pretty bad. Like I said, we are dropping our Dio standards.

[El Barto]

We're talking about later Dio albums and the influence his guitarists had on them but we're completely ignoring Lock up the Wolves and Rowan Robertson. That simply won't do. Along with Magica it's one of only two really good albums he did after the two classics. It's a shame he didn't reconnect with RR after Dehumanizer instead of recording a couple of awful albums with Traci G.


Bosk: Last in Line is one of the two cover bands out milking his legacy. That one has Vivian Campbell and, sigh, Vinnie Appice. The other is Dio Disciples with Craig Goldy, Simon Wright, Scott Warren, Ripper Owens, and the holographic RJD. I don't really get the appeal of either. A cover band of, say, Pink Floyd makes sense because it was a band effort. For them it was more about music than style and personality. A band like Van Halen or ACDC is the other way around, and a cover band (or tribute, as they like to be called), then becomes more about impersonation of the performers rather than representing the music. In this case, that's clearly the way DD is presenting it. LiL seems to be more about the music, but without Dio I'm not sure I get the point.

[bosk1]

Bosk: Last in Line is one of the two cover bands out milking his legacy. That one has Vivian Campbell and, sigh, Vinnie Appice. The other is Dio Disciples with Craig Goldy, Simon Wright, Scott Warren, Ripper Owens, and the holographic RJD. I don't really get the appeal of either. A cover band of, say, Pink Floyd makes sense because it was a band effort. For them it was more about music than style and personality. A band like Van Halen or ACDC is the other way around, and a cover band (or tribute, as they like to be called), then becomes more about impersonation of the performers rather than representing the music. In this case, that's clearly the way DD is presenting it. LiL seems to be more about the music, but without Dio I'm not sure I get the point.

Yeah, I get that.  And I have no idea what the intentions of the guys in LIL actually are, but I feel that they have a legitimate claim to go out and play that music since the bulk of their live sets comprise the albums they actually played and toured on back in the day.  I know RJD was Dio.  But still, when you had 4 of the 5 guys who co-wrote or at least played the material on the album and the tours that followed, I think it's legit to go out and tour on it later in life.  And I'll add that, being at the show, having Vivian's unmistakable guitar tone and phrasing and Vinnie's rhythm holding it down, it really took me back and felt authentic.

[El Barto]

Bosk: Last in Line is one of the two cover bands out milking his legacy. That one has Vivian Campbell and, sigh, Vinnie Appice. The other is Dio Disciples with Craig Goldy, Simon Wright, Scott Warren, Ripper Owens, and the holographic RJD. I don't really get the appeal of either. A cover band of, say, Pink Floyd makes sense because it was a band effort. For them it was more about music than style and personality. A band like Van Halen or ACDC is the other way around, and a cover band (or tribute, as they like to be called), then becomes more about impersonation of the performers rather than representing the music. In this case, that's clearly the way DD is presenting it. LiL seems to be more about the music, but without Dio I'm not sure I get the point.

Yeah, I get that.  And I have no idea what the intentions of the guys in LIL actually are, but I feel that they have a legitimate claim to go out and play that music since the bulk of their live sets comprise the albums they actually played and toured on back in the day.  I know RJD was Dio.  But still, when you had 4 of the 5 guys who co-wrote or at least played the material on the album and the tours that followed, I think it's legit to go out and tour on it later in life.  And I'll add that, being at the show, having Vivian's unmistakable guitar tone and phrasing and Vinnie's rhythm holding it down, it really took me back and felt authentic.

Yeah, I don't deny their legitimacy. Both bands can play the music if they wish. I just question the purpose. Just seems like a cash-grab to me. I'm fortunate that I saw Dio many times; he was on my always-see list. I just couldn't imagine going to see his band without him. I mean, without Dio was the music actually that good? I never thought so.

[pg1067]

My $0.02:  Lock up the Wolves is one of the worst albums in my collection.  "My Eyes" is the only song that's even listenable.  It was right about the time I started buying new albums on CD instead of vinyl; if I had originally bought it on vinyl, I would not have replaced with a CD.  The concert in support of LUTW was completely lackluster, and I never bought another Dio album after that.

I love RJD and those first three Dio albums (and Dream Evil to a lesser extent).  The Last in Line concert shirt was the first "official" concert shirt I bought, and my friends and I walked around high school throwing horns at each other and exclaiming, "Dio!"  But in retrospect, Dio was really a "starter" band for me.

[Architeuthis]

And I all of a sudden hear whispers saying 'don't talk to strangers'..

[wolfking]

I thought it was pretty bad. Like I said, we are dropping our Dio standards.

I agree with Master of the Moon, I thought it was pretty terrible.

[Stadler]

I'm kind of in the TAC camp, though I am also not that familiar with the RR/Traci G stuff, so maybe I should check it out.  I just know that what little I've heard didn't grab me, and even though I like the Goldy stuff, it doesn't measure up to Holy Diver or Last In Line (two of the best metal albums ever produced).

My hot take:  Jimmy Bain was the secret sauce in the Dio stew. 

[bosk1]

I dunno.  Dio had a handful of songs I really liked on the first two albums.  But I never cared for the deep cuts at all.  And after the first two, it was only the odd song here or there that I liked at all.  And I also always found him to be pretty off-putting.  So I was never really a huge fan.  But those songs that I liked, I thought were REALLY good.

[TAC]

@ El Barto:

My hot take:  Jimmy Bain was the secret sauce in the Dio stew.

My $0.02:  Lock up the Wolves is one of the worst albums in my collection.  "My Eyes" is the only song that's even listenable.  It was right about the time I started buying new albums on CD instead of vinyl; if I had originally bought it on vinyl, I would not have replaced with a CD.  The concert in support of LUTW was completely lackluster, and I never bought another Dio album after that.

Really? I think it's excellent. It has aged really well. After Vivian, I think Rowan was Dio's second best guitarist.

As far as the the tour, I thought it was excellent. He dug deep and pulled out Stargazer (well about half of it) for the first time.

[pg1067]

My $0.02:  Lock up the Wolves is one of the worst albums in my collection.  "My Eyes" is the only song that's even listenable.  It was right about the time I started buying new albums on CD instead of vinyl; if I had originally bought it on vinyl, I would not have replaced with a CD.  The concert in support of LUTW was completely lackluster, and I never bought another Dio album after that.

Really? I think it's excellent. It has aged really well. After Vivian, I think Rowan was Dio's second best guitarist.

As far as the the tour, I thought it was excellent. He dug deep and pulled out Stargazer (well about half of it) for the first time.

Well...other than the LUTW songs and "Egypt" (every artist seems to have a song that he loves playing but which I don't really like), the set list was really good.  I just remember the performance being very "meh."  Maybe it was because it was at the end of the tour.  Maybe it was because I thought the album pretty much stunk.  I tried listening to the album not too long ago, and it was a struggle to get through it.

[bosk1]

I didn't even know Egypt (the song) existed until I heard the cover Doro did in the '90s.  Not sure what album it was on.  If I heard it, it never registered with me as anything cool (the only album I actually owned was Holy Diver).  I really liked Doro's version of it.  But when I heard LIL perform it last weekend, it was one of those songs that I thought didn't really go over that well.

[pg1067]

I didn't even know Egypt (the song) existed until I heard the cover Doro did in the '90s.  Not sure what album it was on.  If I heard it, it never registered with me as anything cool (the only album I actually owned was Holy Diver).  I really liked Doro's version of it.  But when I heard LIL perform it last weekend, it was one of those songs that I thought didn't really go over that well.

Egypt was a staple of Dio's live shows (at least during the Last in Line through Lock up the Wolves era).  Excluding "drum solo" and "guitar solo," Setlist.fm has Egypt as the #9 most frequently played Dio song.  It just sort of plods along with nothing interesting happening.

[MirrorMask]

Oh come on Egypt is nice! but All the Fools Sailed Away (from Dream Evil) is even better and probably even less known 

[pg1067]

Oh come on Egypt is nice! but All the Fools Sailed Away (from Dream Evil) is even better and probably even less known 

I would definitely agree that ATFSA (especially the middle section with the keyboard/guitar solo) is better than Egypt.

[TAC]

Egypt was a staple of Dio's live shows (at least during the Last in Line through Lock up the Wolves era). 

It was? I saw both legs (w/Viv and Craig) of the Sacred Heart tour, as well as the Dream Evil tour, and I know they didn't play it. I actually recorded the Dream Evil show in Providence. I checked S.FM and it was confirmed. Maybe it was a West Coast thing?

I felt the LUTW tour setlist was fresh. playing Egypt was unexpected, and I thought it was a pleasant surprise.

[Stadler]

They did play it in New Haven on the Last In Line tour:  https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/dio/1984/new-haven-veterans-memorial-coliseum-new-haven-ct-3bc47044.html

(I was at that show; big fight on the floor during Twisted Sister; my dad's boss's daughter was at the show and took a chair to the face, earning a black eye.  My dad was like "WTF"?).