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Ronnie James Dio - Vocals
Doug Aldrich - Guitars
Rudy Sarzo - Bass
Simon Wright - Drums
Scott Warren - Keyboards
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| * Released April 18, 2006 on Eagle Records. * Recorded at the Astoria in London in 2005. * A DVD of this show is planned for a May 2006 release. Guide Review - Dio - Holy Diver Live 1983's Holy Diver is a great heavy metal album, and Ronnie James Dio has one of the best voices in metal, so doing a live version of this classic seems like a great idea. The concept is a good one, but the end result didn't reach greatness. It's hard to believe, but Ronnie James Dio is human. Some of the vocals weren't as strong as you'd expect. There are a couple of songs where he sounds raspy and the songs are in a lower key. But there are plenty of moments where Dio sounds like the RJD we've been listening to for the past 30 years. The first disc is Holy Diver in its entirety. The second disc has songs from Dio's solo career along with some Black Sabbath and Rainbow tracks. He put together a tight sounding band including guitarist Doug Aldrich, bassist Rudy Sarzo, drummer Simon Wright and keyboard player Scott Warren. Even with some less than perfect vocals it's still a worthy album, especially for Dio fans. |
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| It seems as if there is a new sort of trend going on with Heavy Metal musicians older than 40 these days. Certain bands and artists seemingly feel forced to revisit their glory days in one way or another in a desperate attempt to cash in on their successes of old. Some of them do it by recording a sequel to that very special "hit" album, while others do it by playing that same record in its entirety during live concerts. "Holy Diver Live" is, as you might have guessed from its title, one of the second variety and is presented here as a 2-disc set. Sadly, like with most of the attempts to quickly make an easy buck on account of diehard fans, this live album also leaves me with something of a bitter aftertaste. First let me start off by saying that it is somewhat funny that this is yet another Dio live record on which Doug Aldrich plays the guitar. It seems that even though Goldy is officially the guitar player of the band, every time a show is being recorded, he is - for one mysterious reason or another - absent. I’m not sure what actually happened this time around but I can say that I really don’t mind Aldrich taking over guitar duties. In my opinion he is the superior guitar player by far and only compliments an already fine lineup of musicians, consisting of Rudy Sarzo (bass), Simon Wright (drums) and Scott Warren (keyboards). With musicians like these, it comes as no surprise thus that musically, Holy Diver Live is top notch. So what are my complaints about, I hear you ask? Well, first off there is the simple fact that I really cannot get very excited about the idea behind playing the songs from "Holy Diver" (1983) back to back. Sure, it is a classic album, but everyone who has ever been to a Dio show knows that most of these tracks are on the setlist anyway. "Rainbow In The Dark", "Holy Diver", "Don’t Talk To Strangers" and "Stand Up And Shout" have already been played to death, while most of the rest have already popped up in one way or another over the course of the last couple of years, and thus the only real interesting additions here consist of the songs "Gypsy" and "Shame On The Night". Somehow this just takes away from the supposedly special character of the show and so I can honestly say that the first disc isn’t really all that interesting as the hype makes it out to be. Disc two however, doesn’t really fare much better either. For some uncanny reason there is not a single song present here that is older than 1984. Instead of a couple of rare gems from albums like for example "Lock Up The Wolves" (1990) or "Dream Evil" (1987), we once again get the same tired and old set of songs that apparently have to be played at every single Dio gig until his retirement. I am not sure if anyone can still get exited by hearing "We Rock", "Man On The Silver Mountain", "Heaven & Hell" or "Long Live Rock & Roll" in their live renditions, but personally it leaves me stone cold. If I wanted to hear any of these songs in a decent live version, I could have just as easily put on "Evil Or Divine" (2002). So this disc too, is somewhat of a disappointment, which is only saved (barely) by the inclusion of what might be the best and most interesting tracks on here, namely "Gates Of Babylon" and "Tarot Woman". What makes things worse, is the fact that Dio doesn’t exactly seem to be having his best night on these recordings either. Especially during the first couple of songs, he seems to have a lot of trouble, his voice sounding too rough and hoarse. Something which becomes really apparent every time Dio tries to hit the higher registers. It does however, get better later on and granted, even on his worst he still sounds a lot better live than most other vocalists around, but again, his performance on "Evil Or Divine" is far superior to what he does here. In the end, I am left with something of a divided opinion on "Holy Diver Live". Sure, the songs (even though at current I am bored to death with some of them) are great, and righteously deserve to be labeled as classics, and the performance of the band is without doubt fine. But I can’t help but feel that this is just another easy cash-in on the 80’s revival trend that is currently going on, and yet another wasted opportunity. Instead of a live rendition of the entire "Holy Diver" album plus the usual golden oldies, I would have much rather had a collection of true rarities from various periods throughout Dio’s career. As it is, and even though the album still definitely classifies as above average, I really cannot recommend it to anyone, save for the most hardened of fans, who feel that they still don’t have enough live versions of "Man On The Silver Mountain" or "We Rock". |
EAC extraction logfile from 5. May 2006, 20:33 for CD
Dio / Holy Diver Live (CD1)
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Filename C:\RIPEOS EAC\Dio - Holy Diver Live.wav
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No errors occured
End of status report
EAC extraction logfile from 5. May 2006, 20:45 for CD
Dio / Holy Diver Live (CD2)
Used drive : PLEXTOR CD-R PREMIUM Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, disable cache
Read offset correction : 30
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Used output format : Internal WAV Routines
44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo
Other options :
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Installed external ASPI interface
Range status and errors
Selected range
Filename C:\RIPEOS EAC\Dio - Holy Diver Live (CD2).wav
Peak level 99.8 %
Range quality 100.0 %
CRC 0A585C63
Copy OK
No errors occured
End of status report
Just listen to Doug Aldrich :punk:
:hi: