This was lauded as one of the biggest concert events of the year and how could it be anything less when it it the reunion of the Dio era Black Sabbath who are now touring under the moniker of Heaven and Hell. Tonight we were present as a fan and while not on official Metal Reporter duty, we made sure to document the evening and present it for you via the article that the logo below will bring you to. Don’t worry about the lack of photos from us because the show was recorded for release on DVD and that will come out later in the year.

Artist: Heaven and Hell
Venue: Radio City Music Hall (New York, NY)
Opener: not applicable
Date: 3/30/2007
Label: Rhino Entertainment

Describing this concert as one of the most important events in Heavy Metal history would be as dead on true a statement as any Metal head could hope to utter. The “reunion” of the Black Sabbath lineup that featured Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Vinny Appice and Ronnie James Dio would be nothing less than historic in nature. When the sale of the tickets was announced they ended up selling out in about a half an hour and this was largely due to large response that the Internet pre-sale gained. Personally I find those a little unfair to the mass public but bands seem to be insistent on doing them. It was not long after all the tickets were gone that it was announced that the performance at New York’s famous Radio City Music Hall would be recorded for release on DVD by the end of the summer on Rhino Entertainment. Now as far as Black Sabbath is concerned we all know that the Ozzy material is as legendary as it can be and pretty close to being the book by which the genre would be written on for decades to come. Yet when Osbourne was no longer part of the equation and they had the arrival of Dio, the course of the band would not go quietly into that good night but instead be changed for the best. They were still incredibly heavy, but the music took on a more sinister and darker tone and was clearly in gear with the other Metal that was popular at the time. Dio’s input on the albums “Heaven And Hell” and “Mob Rules” gave a new life to the founding fathers of Metal and with the drumming of Vinny Appice, they had that much more power in driving their point home. The original reason for the reunion was the fact that Dio would work on new music with Iommi for a sound collection of the music they did together on the two early albums along with “Dehumanizer” and “Live Evil”. It seemed to make perfect sense to all parties that the best way to celebrate the new and legacy material would be with a comprehensive tour around the world. The show at Radio City Music Hall would only find the legends appearing and no opener would be there to either enjoy or suffer through. This was “The Dio Years” in living color right before your very eyes.
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