Vivian Campbell & Jimmy Bain of Dio
(Photo by Umlaut)
(Photo by Umlaut)
This is the only good shot I got because I was crushed against the stage (there was no barrier). Dio played 2 sold out shows on the same day due to the ticket demand (an early and a late show - 3,000 at each).
Besides Ronnie James, the other major draw for us was guitarist Vivian Campbell, who previously had been in the underground English Metal band Sweet Savage (Metallica covered the Sweet Savage song "Killing Time" on an early demo and later as a b-side in 1991). In 1987, Campbell left Dio and has since made a career of playing with crap bands such as Whitesnake and Def Leppard.
Opening the show were the fledgling Northwest Metal band Queensryche, who only had a 5-song EP out at the time. Note: 2/5 of their EP were songs about women ("Queen Of The Reich" and "The Lady Wore Black"..) and the other 3/5 were songs about a night demon thing, a sword of light thing, and a prophecy thing ("Nightrider", "Blinded", and "Prophecy") .
The King Biscuit Flower Hour [click for link] taped the San Jose shows and aired around 30 minutes of Dio and maybe 15 minutes of Queensryche. At one point Dio said "You're the best audience we've ever played for..." which was kinda cool since the band had only played around 20 shows up to that point in time.. Of course, The Elf could have just been saying that.
Before the show I ran into Cliff Burton of Metallica. He was with Jim Martin (later of Faith No More). They offered me a beer from their 12 pack. Metallica's debut U.S. Tour had ended only a month before, but Cliff wasn't recognized by the Metal Kidz.
"Holy Diver.. You're the star of the masquerade.. No need to look so afraid.."
