Kingcrimsonprog
Dio’s Holy Diver Live is a very enjoyable release from one of Rock and Metal’s most famous artists.
During the two hour run time the band play a selection of songs from Rainbow, Black Sabbath and Dio in addition to performing the entire of the Holy Diver album.
If the band’s line up or the concert’s tracklisting bothers you then feel free to give this a miss, but for everyone else you’ll find a very strong Live Blu Ray indeed.
The sound, both in terms of recording quality and mix is simply excellent and the picture quality is very high, with suitable camera work and a good pace of editing.
Ronnie James Dio’s performance live is fantastic as always and the band which includes Doug Aldrich on guitar, Rudy Sarzo on bass and Scott Warren on keyboards are on top form, performing professionally and delivering the material with flair and enthusiasm.
Drummer Simon Wright even performs a surprisingly enjoyable and musical drum solo, which is lengthy enough to sink your teeth into but still short enough that it never becomes boring.
The band also enliven the material with little twists on the material here and there, such as different drum fills or guitar licks than on record as well as adding dynamic endings to some of the songs which faded out on their original albums.
The only complaint to be had about the film is that there are one or two shots in which the drums on screen are blatantly not coming out of the speakers (simple editing mistakes, where you can see snare rolls in the background during sections without snare rolls) but there are only about three such mistakes in the whole film and therfor not really worth too much concern.
Otherwise, this is a superb release, a strong performance of a selection of classic material, shot and sounding excellent.
Even though there are already a lot of Dio DVDs available, Holy Diver Live is definitely worth getting unless you lost all interest in the prospect of Dio live DVDs anyway, in which case you already know this isn’t for you. For everyone else, this is highly recommended.