Dio concert review; May 7th, 1997 by Yoko Nakajima

The following is a review of the first show on the Angry Machines tour in Japan, originally e-mailed to me.

From: Yoko Nakajima (Yoko.Nakajima@ma1.seikyou.ne.jp)
Subject: on your message and a review
Date: Thu, 08 May 1997 05:14:28 +0000

a review-"really expected show after 10 years' absence" (7th May, in Osaka)

It was a very hot and humid day like notorious summer in my town. The venue was in the basement of very new tall building in the center of Osaka. Capacity is 1000 people and around 85-90% was occupied, I think. To my delight the audience were much younger than I thought and also quite a number of young women ware there;) Middle-aged office male workers seemed to hurry here on their way home from the office.

The set list is same in recent America shows. Around 7:15 the show began with JMHG. But audience looked embarrassed at first because this tune isn't gotten used to yet here. But R.J.Dio's great energy is so contageous that people were utterly excited, enjoyed and in some tunes listened to his voice and the music itself. I was intentionally standing backward to watch the people and enjoy DIO "objectively". Gradually more and more people were hypnotized and drawn into his determined, beautiful world. To see and experience this process was joyful and magical literally.

The highlight was "Mistreated" and "Catch the rainbow", undoubtedly. A few month ago when Mr. Putten E-mailed to me " Catch the Rainbow moved me to tears", to be honest I thought it was VERY VERY understandable but personally I wanted to hear more tunes after 1990 simply because we lived in the 90's and their 90's works were very interesting. But through today's show I realized Dio's fresh and fruitful ability always renewed old nice tunes, like Maria Callas brought the dramatic reality into the old operas. In near future I would like to hear both fields of his music in live, because Dio and DIO have both sides now. ( Many fans don't seem to be used to modern ones but they are really unique and original, I think. DIO is challenging us, too, to tackle something new.)

Moreover what I want to write especially is that guitar solo was very attractive. I think Tracyseemed to take emotional feelings partially and it successfully adds a little gentle feelings to his originally abstract, philosophical and aggressive feelins. His solo comes just after two old tunes above mentioned. This stream is really artistic. Every time I listen to his guitar, I like his attitudes and music sense more and more. Tracy is Tracy. What is next amalgam?