Day One – Gothenburg

One half second after the lights went out the crowd went crazy. Some fans were looking at each other with face-expressions saying “Hey man, this is it! We're the Last In Line. If heaven comes crashing down in an hour, this is what we'll take with us to the afterlife!”. Others were totally surprised and turned towards the stage in the blink of an eye, thinking “I didn't miss anything, did I?”. Most of the people in the building were simply screaming “Dio, Dio, Dio!”. Personally I just took at step back and turned to my brother to see him nodding back at me. That was when I realized that we were in fact in for a killer ride!

Killer Ride? Haha, yes. In more ways then one. We were in fact two or maybe three seconds away from crashing our car into a train on our way to the concert. That is one story though that wont be told, still I'm gonna start earlier that day. My day began in bed, waking up thinking “Yet another chapter is to be written in the book of Rock History!”. I packed my bag and then looked at the clock just to realize that there was no chance on earth that I would make it to the train if I were walking there. I locked up my apartment, went down on floor and crashed into a classmates apartment screaming “I´m going on tour with Dio and Alice Cooper! If you don't drive me to the train I'll miss it!”. Did she really have choice? After traveling by train I hocked up with my brother Mattias to continue our journey toward Frolundaborg I Gothenburg. We got there in time to argue a little with the “local heroes” (as I like to call them). Of course my photo pass didn't come through but with the Aftershow-passes in hand I thought that perhaps I ought to be a little grateful all the same.

The fifteen second intro came to an end, lights went on an Dio kicked of the tour with the heavy intro of Sunset Superman! The “little man with the big voice” was in fact back and even though he continued on to the next tune saying “I can be Invisible” all eyes were on him, and the man was very much indeed visible. The terrible sound we had to put up with during the opening act (Ratt) was gone, and the lights were great. Simon Wright would then continue with his drum solo, playing to pre-recorded DAT-material and hammering bass drums to maximum while the strobes were flashing wild. The band returned from the shadows to perform Stand up and Shout and Don't Talk to Strangers. The crowd screamed in awe after the latter of the songs were finished, and then Ronnie introduced three of the band members to finish of by saying “…and of course on bass guitar – Jimmy Bain!”. The black haired dude with the bass received a one 1000 decibel tribute, and then an intro to Magica went on. Magica Theme would lead into Lord of the Last Day and the first tracks of the concept were finished. Much to my surprise the band then jumped directly to the beginning of Turn to Stone but after Craig Goldy and Jimmy Bain had finished the intro the band began playing with Craig doing a guitar solo. The band would then leave the soloing guitarist to return 1 or 2 minutes later to finish of the solo. Ronnie came out screaming “Craig Goldy!!” in his cordless microphone. The chanting voices at the en of Lord of the Last Day came from the speakers and we knew that the band would in fact pick up the concept were they left it and a somewhat speedier version of Fever Dreams came about with an alternate ending than the one we can hear on the album. The title track from Dio album number one, Holy Diver, was then performed and the backdrop featuring Murray from the album cover was making very much sense. No time for pauses, a short version of Heaven & Hell followed, and then it all happened. I was of course taking notes (as always). If you would've read my notes you would probably see something like: “What the f#&k? Who is singing? God?”. It wasn't god, but by all means, a man of flesh and blood that goes by the same name. Ronnie was absolutely excellent! “Sing me a song, you're a singer” and he did, and what a song! The 2^nd verse of Heaven & Hell was not included to make time for more songs. Rainbow in the Dark followed and along with it came an enormous disturbance. Halfway through the song Ronnie starts looking at the guys at stage-side as if to say: “What? You're talking to us? Some heads are gonna roll!”. (I later found out that the band had three songs to perform and 4 minutes to do so.) The song was completed in a somewhat mediocre fashion since all of the people on stage were completely confused and so was I, thinking: “Will there be an encore?”. The crowd then screamed again as Dio in fact did enter for an encore. Then came the re-run of a an episode well received in America: “I love Mickey Dee!”, screams Ronnie and the beloved Motörhead-banger Mickey Dee steps up on the stage (being from Gothenburg and all) to perform Neon Knights. It's an easy “drum-song” but the job was well done. Simon Wright was standing next to the stage in awe, jumping and screaming. The song finished and the band left the stage.

After the show we were of course expecting to meet the band, as always. Therefore a big “Hell No!” goes out to the local heroes at the venue for messing stuff up and not letting us enter the backstage area. (Also I should mention that the guys from the website “Swedish Rainbow” were there. And what can I say guys? I'm sorry, there will be other chances, I promise!) Me and my brother Mattias left the building and walked toward our car only to run into a drunk Mickey Dee at the parking lot. “Hey Mickey. We didn't get to see Ronnie! These stupid jerks messed it up” I said. Mickey turns to me saying, “Hey guys, I know. They gave me a freaking working pass. Yeezuz Christ. F##king idiots…! “. We left the Mickey in the care of his friends, got in to our car and drove home. The day after we would be leaving for Linkoping, Falun and Malmoe.

Day Two – Linkoping

Mattias dropped by around 11:00 the morning after. We packed our stuff into the car and went for Linkoping – a three and a half our drive from where we live. Nothing much happened along the way. We got to the venue in time to get our passes and to get to talk to Ira – the new Dio tour manager. Ira apologized for the trouble the day before and said that they would try to make it up to us this day instead. For those of you who haven't got to meet Ira yet, trust me, he's such a cool guy. He's good at what he does and also good at trying to be good to people.

The set list for this evening was almost the same as the day before as the band would start of with Sunset Superman. The show started off great with Ronnie spending the entire second chorus of the first song standing on one of the monitors. After the Drum Solo Ronnie would say: “Do you know what Simon said to me yesterday? Stand up and Shout!”… and so we did. This was a great Dio show. It was also and ordinary Dio show, in a good way. It included everything a good Dio show should include. Willy appears halfway through the set and helps Ronnie down so that he can greet the front row. Before the Magica concept starts Jimmy is giving Ronnie a look as to say: “Hey, Ron! This is the way the job should be made!”. Nothing new with Magica except that Craig has altered his solo a bit and starts it off without Jimmy doing bass. A Holy Diver flag appears on stage while performing Holy Diver, Ronnie waves it around and the returns it to it's proud owner. Heaven & Hell was performed a bit faster than usually, especially the ending. The set list today also included a different encore: Man on the Silver Mountain / Long Live Rock’n’Roll. The encore would eventually lead into Rainbow in the Dark.

After the show Ira came to get us and we entered the dressing room where the band were finishing off their late dinner. This was an absolutely wonderful evening with lots of interesting stories and conversations. The whole band felt relaxed and so did we. Personally I spent most of the “after-party” talking to Ronnie and it was just great. Ronnie's asked why I did take pictures of the show and so I told him that the photo-pass didn't come through. He then marched of to find Ira to get me passes for the next day. This was also our first meeting with legendary bassman Jimmy Bain, and it was cool. After an our or two the band were rushed off to the bus to continue to Falun. We rushed off to our car to get in a proper driving state – that would take me about a night or so, so we decided to sleep in the car.

Day Three – Falun

Waking up in a car sucks. Knowing that you're off to yet another Dio concert rocks! We got ourselves some breakfast and continued our metal crusade. On the way to Falun we found time to stop and buy a certain telephone card. The card is made for calling to other countries and the guy doing the monitor sound for Dio (Lorenzo) had asked me to purchase one for him if I found the time. Lorenzo was also the first person we met as we got to the venue in Falun. He was very pleased to see that we had gone out of our way to get the card for him and insisted that we should “hang around” while he was doing the sound check. Various guys appeared to drive us away only to have Lorenzo walking up to them driving them away. That was pretty comfortable. LOL!

9 o’clock PM the band entered the stage. This was also a great show, and the band were really getting into it. The same set list was performed as the day before. Today another flag appeared on stage. This one had a hole in it so Ronnie decided that it was a good idea to stick his head into the hole. Everyone in the audience were laughing as the lead singer tried to rock’n’roll in his new “robe”. The flag was then sent back into the audience and the band continued the song at the time, Fever Dreams, with Ronnie faking kicks and blows on Craig. As the band reached Heaven & Hell Ronnie decided to let the audience participate a little and gave us the chance to sing almost the whole first verse.

This evening also ended in the bands dressing room, and today everything was a little bit more calm. No party, just a bunch of guys discussing the shot. I got sit in the middle of a somewhat strange music-session as the whole band gathered up to change a note or two in the set list. I gave my thought on Fever Dreams being performed a bit too fast, and Ronnie said: “You´re absolutely right Anders! Hey Craig?! We probably should do Fever Dreams a little slower tomorrow”. We had some presents for Craig´s wife and some records to be signed but we were also tired so we broke up after a while since we had a six our drive home. I felt a little strange leaving the band when they asked us to come to Norway and Stockholm with them, but even Dio fans have certain obligations like jobs and school. We said goodbye and promised that we would catch up with them I Malmoe 10 days later. As we left, so did the and the first leg of our metal crusade was coming to and end.

Day Four – Malmoe

It had gone almost 2 full weeks from when we had last seen Dio. That was in Falun, today we were heading for Malmoe. During the last weeks we had been working so this was something we really looked forward to. Staying on the road will cost a person quite much, so I had plans to make some interviews for the University Radio that I work for in-between studies, and get them to pay for trip! You know what? They agreed, but then I became nervous. What if things wouldn't work out? Well, don't worry, they did. It took us 10 minutes of cold sweat to enter the venue since the people at the box office couldn't find our tickets, but then they did, and jada jada jada.

Before the show started I got to join Ronnie and Willy for an interview with a program for Swedish national television. Hat was really cool since no one else were authorized to enter the room where the interview took place. The interview lasted for about 20 minutes and it is to be aired sometime this early summer in a program called Musikbyrån (The Music Bureau). Ronnie then went to the dressing room and I went to get a nice spot to see the show from. A last time the Sunset would rise above the Superman and as it did me and Mattias were almost frightened because something was happening with the bass player. Mr. Jimmy Bain was energetic that I almost thought something was wrong. Of course it wasn't and Jimmy continues in the very same fashion the whole concert, simply raving and running. Craig was also in quite a good mood as he was head banging like crazy. Craig's performance was excellent with great solos and a kick ass stage performance. He would later explode during his guitar solo and it looked as he was very much enjoying himself. The set list was pretty much identical to the last concert we had seen. After Craig solo Ronnie was making his way back to the stage and while doing so he just felt like climbing a little some he decided to mount Craig's Marshall amp only to realize that it would probably not be a good idea. This evening Jimmy was doing quite a bit backing vocals (even more than the shows earlier on this tour) which was great. After the Man on the Silver Mountain / Long Live Rock’n’Roll medley the audience were raving Dio! Dio! Dio! The band reappeared with Ronnie saying: “OK, this song is for Jimmy!”. This Swedish leg had started of with Sunset Superman two weeks earlier and now we knew what the finale would be – The Last in Line! And what a way to end! The keyboard was really load and it was really cool! Ronnie was jumping on the monitors like crazy for 15 or 20 seconds and trust me, this was the BEST performance on the entire tour! The concert ended and all five band members bowed to the audience thanking them and waving.

After the show we got to hang out with the band and I made lots of great interviews for the University Radio. I especially enjoyed my 30 minute conversation with Simon Wright. After about 10 minutes Ronnie started running around. What was going on? “Hey, Jens is here!”, Ronnie shouted, and he was right. Along with his brother Anders Johansson (of Hammerfall famous) Jen Johansson entered the dressing room. Everyone was enjoying themselves and I got some great material (such as autographs for my radio program) and when the evening came to and end I understood that we truly had been blessed. This was a great tour, it was special in more ways then one. Perhaps ‘special’ is the wrong word to… Hmmm, what would be better? How about ‘magical’? Yeah, I think I'll stick to that!

Anders Ström