At Wacken 2016, Dio's hologram made its first-ever appearance on stage. The hologram was backed by a live band, Dio Disciples, and we were told that a tour would be coming sooner or later. Now an in interview with Talking Metal, Eyellusion (the company responsible for creating the hologram) CEO Jeff Pezzuti says the hologram will be touring throughout 2017.
The weird part is that the whole show won't be the Dio hologram, but will include Ripper Owen and Oni Logan as live vocalists for some songs.
“For the tour he’s going to have different looks. [At Wacken] he was somewhere around ’88, the Dream Evil era. For this next tour we’re going to be somewhere later than that for certain songs and maybe earlier than that for other songs.
“The tour will be an over-the-top mind blowing experience. We are going to have both live singers with Ripper Owen and Oni Logan as part of the show as well as Ronnie appearing throughout the show at different parts, some duets. It’s going to be mind blowing from the fans’ perspective. We are going to bring album covers to life. We are going to bring things that are known to Ronnie to life onstage.
“Ronnie will be involved in each show from probably six to seven song a night that he will be singing on. Some of the ones we can expect are “We Rock,” “Holy Diver” and “Rainbow in the Dark.”
The hologram tour was strange to begin with – it's like watching a movie, but with live performances. Now it's a hologram that comes off like a live movie of Dio playing the classics, but with essentially a cover band interspersed? It's just a really odd decision, and I'm interested to see how well this sell.
Personally, I won't be in attendance. I've got the Dio discography at home, and I'm sure listening to that is probably going to be a very similar experience.
