Dio concert review; Two German shows by Alexander Rack

The following is a review of two Dio shows on the first leg of Angry Machines European tour, originally mailed to me. Republished here with permission from the author. I had to edit the layout a little bit for better outlook on web, but all the information is still intact.

From: arack@berlin.snafu.de (Alexander Rack)
Subject: RJD is god, Tracy G is... (Berlin, Hamburg review)
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 01:13:29 +0100 (MET)

I saw Dio two times on his current tour through Germany/Austria (he only toured there). Very surprisingly for most of us he is really supporting Motoerhead which means that he only played about 1 h per each gig, damn thing because I paid for Dio & Motorhead but mainly left after Dio (I am not that much into Motoerhead).

Anyway, I was lucky enough to get an interview date with RJD plus the passes but when I arrived at the hall (where I also met Jacqueline Clerc from the `European Dio Fan Club`) I was informed that Dio felt terrible ill and all interviews were canceled, damn! Fortunately I was able to get a photo pass for a friend of mine and so we got a lot of exciting photos from the show. Members of one of the two Black Sabbath fan clubs can order copies within the next two weeks, just have a look at my homepage (http://www.inx.de/ ~arack/bsfcd.html) or wait for `Children Of The Sabbath Volume XIII`!

Dio on the two concerts was really outstanding. Even being ill he moved and sung like a young god. What else can I say about him? It is still exciting to see how he moved on stage, contacted the crowd, smiled, everything was pro- fessional and Dio proved more than once that he is THE frontman of our era! The track list was (not in correct order) Intro, Jesus Mary And The Holy Ghost, Stand Up And Shout, Mob Rules (encore), Heaven And Hell, Holy Diver, Drum Solo, Mistreated, Guitar Solo (terrible), Last In Line, Hunter Of The Heart (a lot better then on the record), Straight Through The Heart, in Ham- burg during "Mistreated" he did also a few lines from `Catch The Rainbow`. Maybe I forgot one or two tracks, then sorry! Larry Bones fit quite well into the band. The new keyboarder was placed be- hind the amps, I personally would judge him as a "strange guy"!

The only thing that was terrible on this evenings was Tracy G. Oh my god, you have no idea what a crap this guy played. The intro for "Mistreated", what a shame...how often I wished to have a pistol in order to shoot his balls, or a huge knife to cut first his fingers off his hands, then his hands off his arms and then his arms off his body. No joke, during his long solo between the two parts of "Mistreated" people started throwing empty and full beer glasses at him. Oh my god, how I wished to have one to throw it at his fucking guitar...Anybody here who like to join my "Tracy please please leave Dio" campaign? How blind must RJD be to name Tracy and Ritchie B./Tony I. in one sentence on one level... Backstage was no chance to meet Ronnie. He hide behind his dressing room door and there was no chance to meet him. Damn, next time (hopefully)!

Bye
Alexander