Dio concert review; April 27th, 1997 by Todd Sunderland

The following is a review of a Dio show on the third North American leg of the Angry Machines tour, originally e-mailed to me.

From: King Of All Commuters (sterniac@abs.net)
Subject: 27 Apr Frederick, MD Review
Date: Sun, 04 May 1997 16:40:10 -0400

Sorry for the delay, I'm just now finally getting around to sending in a review of the 27 April show at "X-Hale" in glorious Fredneck, Maryland...

The first thing I can say is wow, what a difference being sober makes. If you'll recall, I sent in a review for the 4 Dec 96 show at "Jaxx" and stated that I thought Tracy G. did a fine job as The Man's guitarist. I also stated that I had had a few beers that night as well. Well, this time around I had to go to work the next day *early* and did not have anything alcoholic to drink at the show - and I guess beer must really affect my ears because hearing Tracy G. stone cold sober was not a pleasant experience. If I had to sum it up in a single sentence, I'd sat that his "solo" work makes Nigel Tufnel sound like Joe Satriani. In fact, his playing was annoying enough that it actually warranted stating up front in this review ahead of my comments on The Man Himself. I guess I have joined the, "Why does The Man keep Tracy G.?" crowd.

Having said that, I am very happy to say that drunk or sober, The Man's voice was as incredible as ever. He didn't seem to really be happy to be there, though, perhaps because "X-Hale" is a Fredneck nightclub vice a concert hall like Jaxx or Hammerjacks. I don't think the layout of the place was too conducive to a "concert" environment. Regardless, He was a consumate professional throughout the show. The set list was the same as others reported on this leg of the tour, but it seemed shorter for some reason. This is odd because there was nothing short about Tracy G.'s solo. It seemed to drag on unmercifully for hours. I had hoped that for this leg of the tour The Man would have thrown in a few other songs, like swapping out "Straight Through The Heart" for "One Night In The City", or something like that, but with the exception of the "Man on the Silver Mountain" and "Long Live Rock-n-Roll" mix at the end, it was pretty much an identical show to the one I saw at Jaxx last year.

Big Jim was at the show and The Man made comments to him on a couple of different occasions during the performance. I'd be interested to hear what Jim thought of the show.

My Dying Bride was pretty sad overall, though I was surprised to see that there were a handful of people there who knew the words to their songs and actually enjoyed their performance.

Looking forward to seeing The Man again, perhaps on the third leg??? ;)

Cheers,
Todd Sunderland