WENDY DIO says RONNIE JAMES DIO hologram shows will not return
29-07-2022
Ronnie James Dio‘s former wife and longtime manager Wendy Dio says that the hologram of the legendary metal singer was an “experiment” that received a mixed response from the Ronnie fans.
Dio died in 2010 at the age of 67 from stomach cancer. The singer’s hologram was created by a company called Eyellusion and made its debut at the Wacken Open Air festival in August 2016 in front of more than 75,000 fans.
The Dio hologram production used audio of Ronnie‘s live performances from throughout his career, with the DIO band playing live, consisting of Craig Goldy on guitar, Simon Wright on drums and Scott Warren on keyboards, along with Bjorn Englen on bass. Also appearing with them were ex-JUDAS PRIEST singer Tim “Ripper” Owens and former LYNCH MOB frontman Oni Logan.
Wendy discussed the status of the Ronnie James Dio hologram during an appearance on a recent episode of the “The Rockman Power Hour” online show, where she was joined by Vinny Appice (BLACK SABBATH, DIO). She said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It was an experiment that we did. It was 50/50 — some people hated it; some people loved it. It was something we did. I don’t wanna do it again. This time now I’m gonna do real Ronnie. I’ve got all this video footage from RAINBOW and some BLACK SABBATH and DIO and even some ELF stuff, and I wanna put that together with a live band and take that out. ‘Cause I think that’ll be something that kids will really wanna see — stuff that they’ve never seen before as well.”
Wendy previously discussed the status of the Ronnie James Dio hologram during a September 2021 appearance on an episode of the “Hangin’ & Bangin’: Artists On Lockdown” online show. Speaking about how her reaction to the hologram evolved over the years, she said: “When I first saw it, I cried. Then I got used to it because it wasn’t Ronnie. And then we took it out on tour. The first version was not that good. The second one was a lot better. But I decided that I don’t wanna do it anymore; I decided I want real Ronnie. So we’re working on a stage with the DIO band. Instead of having a hologram, it will have film of Ronnie with the live band playing and with special effects and everything else. So that’s what we’re working on. We’re working on it with Paul Dexter (who was Ronnie‘s lighting designer and stage designer for years) and a bunch of other people. And also the Eyellusion people, who did do the hologram, are doing a bunch of special effects for us with it.”
Wendy continued: “I never say never about bringing back the hologram, but technology gets different every day, every day, every day. And I just decided that I wanted to see real Ronnie. … QUEEN does something similar, using footage of Freddie Mercury. Ours will be a little bit different to that because we have all these great effects, 3D effects. It’s almost like going into — what’s that ride at Disneyland, when you go through, and it’s like a 3D effect? That’s what we’re working on right now.”
Two former DIO guitarists have publicly expressed their doubts about the Ronnie James Dio hologram. In December 2019, Tracy “G” Grijalva, who played for DIO from 1993 through 1999, said that the hologram “looks creepy” and resembles “a puppet.” Nine months earlier, Doug Aldrich, who was in DIO between 2002 and 2006, told XS Rock that “Ronnie would probably not” like the hologram. “He would probably be, like, ‘This is not what I signed up for.’ A hologram? It’s not really what he would want to be. I’m just guessing, you know, that it’s something that Wendy thought about and she decided that Ronnie would be fine with it. But I knew Ronnie well enough to know that he was very particular and he would prefer for them to let him just die and be in peace.”
After the “Dio Returns” tour’s initial seven-date run was completed in December 2017, Ronnie‘s hologram underwent some changes before the launch of the 2019 leg of the trek, which took place in May and June of that year.
The “Dio Returns” 17-song set consisted of seven tunes sung by the Dio hologram — the rest featured Owens and Logan separately or together — and encompassed material from Dio‘s lengthy career, including his earlier days in RAINBOW and BLACK SABBATH.
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