Dio concert review; June 8th, 1994 by Brent Phillips

The following is a review of a concert on the Strange Highways US tour, originally e-mailed to me.

Date: Fri, 24 Jun 1994 14:51:12 -0400
From: Brent Phillips (panther@clove.lcs.mit.edu)
Subject: DIO!

The Hampton Beach Casino, Hampton Beach, NH, Wed 6/8/94

The Casino was NOT intelligently set up for a Dio concert. The entire place - including the area immediately before the stage - was filled with tables and chairs, and EVERYONE was sitting down! This was rather confusing...I was a little bit worried that people were going to be sitting down throughout the entire show! So, I sat down at an open table near the back, and though "man, I hope people get up for Dio...it would suck to sit in the back for the whole show..." But, when the lights went out, the dry ice started, and E5150 started playing, people started to get up and rush towards the stage. The tables and chairs everywhere really got in the way, and were actually quite dangerous.

Then, Dio came on stage, and there was another crush to the front, as bodies were crushed between each other and the myriad tables and chairs! People started lifting the tables and chairs up and passing them backwards, so for a brief while there was a swarm of tables and chairs crowd-surfing backwards! This helped to clear out some of the area near the stage, but, believe it or not, even when had played a few songs there were still people sitting at tables right in front of the stage. Dio was visibly pissed that people were sitting down right in front, and was pointing at them during the chorus of "Stand up and Shout".

Eventually most of the idiots sitting down in front either got up or moved, and the show went on. The music was awesome, but the band didn't seem as into it as they could have been; maybe the set up with the tables everywhere pissed them off as much as it pissed off most of the crowd.

Set list (roughly):

• E5150
• Jesus, Mary, & the Holy Ghost
• Stand Up and Shout
• Strange Highways
• Don't Talk to Strangers
• Pain
• Guitar Solo
• Holy Diver
• Man on the Silver Mountain
• Drum Solo
• Heaven & Hell (partial)
• Mob Rules
• Hollywood Black
• Rainbow in the Dark
• Last in Line (encore)