DIO London Astoria, 22nd October 2005

Bizarre start to the gig being accosted by a Norwegian Hell’s Angel asking when the Bulldog Bash was and a Ukrainian man asking if there were any good ‘titty f*** bars’ nearby after the gig. But it does prove the universal language and appeal of rock music and in particular Ronnie James Dio, one of the finest rock vocalists ever. A packed and sold out Astoria went wild with the opening track the Rainbow classic ‘Tarot Woman’ that got the show under way. Sabbath got a look in with ‘Sign of the Southern Cross’ and Dio’s ‘One Night In The City’ followed. The main event was all of the ‘Holy Diver’ album performed live and boy was it good! Highlights for me included ‘Holy Diver’, ‘Caught In The Middle’ and ‘Rainbow In The Dark’ you can’t go wrong, even ‘Shame On The Night’ my personal least favourate track on the album sounded good live and it included a Doug Aldrich guitar solo (he was standing in for Craig Goldy on the UK dates). The band played very tightly and Ronnie Dio was in fine vocal form and seemed to be enjoying the gig, especially the crowds reaction to the music. After this we got more rainbow and Sabbath classics including ‘Gates Of Babylon’ (dedicated to the late, great Cozy Powell), ‘Heaven and Hell’ and ‘Man On A Silver Mountain’ (so good to see a Dio gig where he doesn’t do the annoying Dio megamixes that just have a few minutes of classic tracks that he did back in the 80’s). Encore time saw ‘Long Live Rock ‘N’ Roll’ and ‘We Rock’. Simply superb stuff and the only blight on the night was the poxy Astoria policy of Saturday night gigs ending by 9.30pm to get everyone out ready for the GAY nights that start later.

Dio really is a man on form and he has a very able band along for the ride. Good news as well in that tonight’s gig was being filmed for a future DVD release. Go see Dio live as you won’t be disappointed.