This latest offering from the master of metal wastes no time getting right to the action. As the intro riffs to the Rainbow Rising classic "Tarot Woman" rattle your speakers, a thumbnail-sized shot of the stage slowly expands outward to eventually cover the entire frame. Flashing strobe lights signal the start of the show and offer the first glimpse of the ominous Holy Diver album cover artwork that served as the backdrop to the brilliantly lit stage.
Hearing the menacing Minimoog intro to that often overlooked Rainbow gem, to open the show, was cool enough, but to immediately follow it up with the Mob Rules epic "Sign Of The Southern Cross", easily one of the best songs from Dio's Black Sabbath days, had me grinning from ear to ear. This was shaping up to be one hell of a concert. Dio pays tribute to his killer second album, The Last In Line, next, with the slow-burning, metal anthem "One Night In The City", before getting on with the main event.
Holy Diver Live was filmed on October 22, 2005 at London's Astoria Theater, and, as the title suggests, this particular show was dedicated to an entire performance of Dio's landmark debut album of 1983, Holy Diver. This concept has been done before, and can be especially effective when performing a full-blown concept album, such as Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime, Pink Floyd's The Wall, or Dream Theater's Metropolis Part II: Scenes From A Memory. Although Holy Diver is not exactly a concept album, Dio's albums have all pretty much stuck to the same topics of heaven and hell, sorcerers and dragons, and other medieval themes.
The Holy Diver set begins four songs into the show with a short video introduction that spoofs the Star Wars opening scene with the scrolling text, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." Dio's scrolling text is much funnier, beginning with "Planet Earth 1983...The evil disco empire is about to be attacked..." Attacked and destroyed, thank god. The skull crushing album opener "Stand Up And Shout" kicks things off, and then the entire album follows in order. "Gypsy" was extended by a mammoth drum solo from Simon Wright, which was only to be outdone by Doug Aldrich's guitar solo later on during "Shame On The Night". Aside from the two classics, "Holy Diver" and "Rainbow In The Dark", which are always going to kick ass, the real highlight of the Holy Diver set was most certainly the epic "Don't Talk to Strangers". This one features that classic buildup from beautiful ballad to explosive metal anthem, and Dio performs it masterfully.
Article comments
1 - holy diver
good review dude,agree about dio's vocals especially on gypsy but overall briliant production 9/10
2 - Glyn (Zaphod) Evans
Yep! A super concert DVD to be sure. I especially liked Simon Wright's drums over Holst solo. Very cool. Dio's voice was a little off, but then he is gettign on... 9/10