Rolling_Stone_Australia_October_2017

on may 16th, 2010, the great heavy

metalvocalistRonnieJamesDiopassedaway.

IwassittingonatourbusinBrandon,South

Dakota,whenIgotthenews.Imadeaprogram

of all Dio music for the pre-show soundtrack

that night. As I walked onstage, people were

yelling his name. Dio was awesome. He left

behind one of the most solid and enduring

catalogues in metal, spread

over different bands and mul-

tipledecades.Hewasgreat

to the fans and loved all over

theworld.Ifbysomestroke

ofmagicheweretoreappear,

he could resume touring like

he never stopped. Last year,

at the massive Wacken metal

festival in Germany, Mr. Dio made a return

• of sorts.
  What, a hologram? That’s right. It’s 2017 and
  Ronnie James Dio is looking to make 100 stops
  on a tour called Dio Returns. The musicians,
  members of a Dio tribute band called Dio’s Dis-
  ciples, will play with a singer who will be mul-
  titasking as lead vocalist and deceased person.
  I just watched performance footage of the ho-
  logram and band at the Pollstar Awards. While
  the technological prowess and the group’s in-
  tensity allowed the overall to escape gimmick-
  ry, it was more strange and sad than anything.
  Dio was right there. But he wasn’t.

The what of it is easily understood. What’s

harder to make out and far more interesting

to contemplate is the attraction of spending an

evening watching a band run through a set of

instrumentals with this spectral fi gure in the

background going through motions that will

never change, never interact, but just remind

the audience that Ronnie James Dio is dead.

I think Dio Returns taps

into more aspects of the

human experience than mere-

ly witnessing a laser show. In

Dio Returns, RJD, in a way,

gut punches reality and gives

death the fi nger. Who wouldn’t

cheer for that? The present is

intense and the future is any-

one’s g uess, so when the going gets strange, the

past becomes a refuge. Simon Reynolds, the

great music writer, meticulously delves into our

obsession with the past, preserving it and some-

times perversely enshrining it, in his excellent

book Retromania. We humans are very sensi-

tive creatures and it’s almost impossible for us

to let anything go.

There is no way some artists aren’t prepar-

ing for their virtual after-life. If they start cre-

ating hologramic content early in their careers,

they could allow the lasers to do all the legwork

and tour in several countries at once. Thinking

about it this way, rock & roll truly never dies.

Rundgren just released

White Knight,his 27th

solo album, and is tour-

ing this year with Ringo

Starr’s All-Starr Band.

The Fixx

“Stand or Fall”

This is about what’s hap-

pening to the planet and

how doing nothing is to

lose. It has a bleak sound,

which adds urgency.

Red Rider

“Lunatic Fringe”

The undercurrent of indi-

gence and violence and

hate, as evidenced by the

election of Trump, makes

this an evergreen song.

But now the lunatic fringe

is no longer the fringe.

The Call

“The Walls Came Down”

This became an anthem

about having a party and

fi ghting the powers that

be. It’s got this great cel-

ebratory hoot at the end.

Elvis Costello and

the Attractions

“(What’s So Funny

’Bout) Peace, Love and

Understanding”

He’s angry that people

aren’t taking this stuff se-

riously, as in, “What’s so

fucking funny?” It makes

you want to march.

Sex Pistols

“God Save the Queen”

They weren’t protesting

the Queen so much as

Thatcherite England. It

fostered a movement that

carried forward.

MY LIST

Classic Songs for

the Resistance

To d d

Rundgren

ROLLINS LOOKS ON AS DIO’S HOLOGRAM HITS THE ROAD

AFan’sNotes

October, 2017 RollingStoneAus.com | Rolling Stone | 37

ILLUSTRATION BY MICHAEL WELDON

“Dio, in a way, gut

punches reality

and gives death

the finger.”