Ronnie James Dio’s hologram show was an “experiment” and likely won’t be repeated.
The late seminal artist’s widow Wendy has insisted there are no plans for the hologram shows, which enabled fans of the heavy metal legend to see the star’s music performed with a digital likeness of the former Black Sabbath and Rainbow frontman, to return after they were met with a split reaction from fans and critics.
However, the music manager has another idea in the pipeline to bring Dio to audiences beyond the grave.
Speaking on ‘The Rockman Power Hour’, Wendy said: “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.”
The hologram was created by the firm Eyellusion and made its debut at the Wacken Open Air festival in 2016.
However, it underwent some changes after the first shows of the 2017 ‘Dio Returns’ tour, before the tour resumed in 2019.
Dio band members Craig Goldy, Simon Wright, Scott Warren, Bjorn Englen performed alongside the hologram.
Meanwhile, Wendy recently claimed Dio penned his 1983 hit ‘Holy Diver’ for Black Sabbath originally.
The musician – who died from stomach cancer aged 67 in 2010 – replaced Ozzy Osbourne as frontman of the ‘Paranoid’ group after he was fired by his bandmates in 1979.
Dio appeared on three Sabbath studio albums, 1980’s ‘Heaven and Hell’, 1981’s ‘Mob Rules’ and 1992’s ‘Dehumanizer (1992).
He quit in 1982 to form Dio and took their drummer Vinny Appice with him. He later formed Heaven and Hell with Sabbath’s axe-slayer Tony Iommi.
And during an interview on ‘Full Metal Jackie’ to mark what would have been Dio’s 80th birthday (10.07.22), his wife Wendy revealed ‘Holy Diver’ and ‘Don’t Talk to Strangers’ were both written by Dio when he was still in Sabbath.
Both tracks appeared on Dio’s debut studio album ‘Holy Diver’.
She spilled: “Ronnie always did what he wanted to do. He never listened to what the record label wanted or anyone else. He always stuck to his guns in making the album. He hoped it would be successful. None of us realised how successful it was going to be. We really had been toying around with things and he had written Holy Diver and Don’t Talk to Strangers during the time he was in Black Sabbath, so they were supposed to be Sabbath songs.
“When he left Sabbath, we had a solo deal for him and he just put those songs [on the album] and got the band together, wrote more songs and it came out. Everyone was blown away about the reception that we got and how great the album was and how it’s stood [the test] of time. It’ll be 40 years next year.”