{"id":40658,"date":"2014-05-22T06:03:53","date_gmt":"2014-05-22T11:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=40658"},"modified":"2014-05-22T06:03:53","modified_gmt":"2014-05-22T11:03:53","slug":"king-of-rock-n-roll-the-ronnie-james-dio-tribute-concert-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2014\/king-of-rock-n-roll-the-ronnie-james-dio-tribute-concert-review\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cKing Of Rock \u2019n\u2019 Roll\u201d – The Ronnie James Dio Tribute"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Alexandra Mrozowska<\/span>
\n– Columnist —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

May 15th, 2014 at Centrum Promocji Kultury in Warsaw, Poland —<\/h3>\n

\"TomaszThe tribute concert form is probably the most demanding one \u2013 a tough nut to crack, if you think the audience being comprised of the die-hard fans of the original band or artist and their critical approach. It\u2019s getting even more difficult when the act you\u2019re paying a tribute to is considered a real classic of the respective genre and an untouchable example of musical excellence. And yet, it seems that fortune favors the brave, as \u201cKing Of Rock\u2019n\u2019Roll\u201d \u2013 a tribute to Ronnie James Dio \u2013 held in Warsaw, Poland on Thursday, the May 15, turned out to be both a considerable success and an unforgettable experience music-wise.<\/p>\n

The gig (which took place a day before the fourth anniversary of Ronnie\u2019s death) was organized by Sebastian Stodolak, a talented frontman of the Polish heavy metal band Scream Maker. Starting from the mastermind of this endeavor and his band, the line-up was comprised of the cream of the Polish heavy metal scene \u2013 including such acclaimed singers and musicians, as Grzegorz Kupczyk (CETI, ex-Turbo), Tomasz Struszczyk (Turbo), Wojtek Cugowski (Bracia) or Piotr Brzychcy (Kruk), to mention just a few. The special guest of the show \u2013 whose presence was the real icing on the cake \u2013 was Alessandro Del Vecchio (Hardline, Silent Force), one of the most important names of the current Italian rock scene known also as a great producer. And as for the setlist, it included as many as 21 songs \u2013 all of them being a cross-section of Ronnie James Dio\u2019s work in Rainbow, Black Sabbath and DIO. As for visual impact, the subsequent tracks were illustrated with the respective album covers projected on a big screen in the background of the stage.<\/p>\n

\"DelVecchio_ScreamThe first to hit the stage were Scream Maker, opening the gig with a track that Rainbow themselves used to open their gigs with \u2013 \u201cKill The King\u201d of 1978 album Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll<\/em>. Their excellent rendition of DIO\u2019s 1983 classic \u201cShame On The Night\u201d (Holy Diver<\/em>) was soon to follow. The next was the performance of the foreign guest Alessandro Del Vecchio bursting into blistering versions of Sabbath (\u201cChildren Of The Sea\u201d), DIO (\u201cLast In Line\u201d) and Rainbow (the epic \u201cStargazer\u201d). In the last track of these three, the guitarist to accompany Alessandro was Piotr Brzychcy (of Kruk), who\u2019s refinement and prowess make him a perfect tp foloow inthe footsteps of Ritchie Blackmore\u2019s rock legacy. <\/p>\n

Tomasz Struszczyk (Turbo) was the one to have the longest tenure onstage \u2013 and certainly all fists were pumping in the air during both the monumental \u201cHeaven And Hell\u201d and the fast-paced parts of DIO\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Talk To Strangers\u201d. But apart from having the audience red-hot and roaring, Struszczyk managed to bring tears to their eyes while he went for the nostalgic, flute-driven \u201cRainbow Eyes\u201d of the above 1978 album of Dio-fronted incarnation of Rainbow. It was also the point when Wojciech Cugowski (a son of Krzysztof Cugowski, Polish rock legend, and a talented musician himself) and his bandmates (of the band Bracia) joined Struszczyk onstage. What this line-up performed was \u201cBetween Two Hearts\u201d (of 1990 DIO album Lock Up The Wolves<\/em>) and Rainbow\u2019s \u201cTarot Woman.\u201d Speaking of Ritchie Blackmore\u2019s group, perhaps the most extensively covered period of Ronnie James Dio\u2019s career during this gig, in \u201cMan On The Silver Mountain\u201d Cugowski and his band were joined by the powerhouse duo of two excellent singers: Marcin \u2018Merot\u2019 Maliszewski and Maciek Szulc (both of ThE BlacK HorsemeN). Cugowski sung lead in the enchanting \u201cTemple Of The King\u201d which the majority of the audience found the highlight of the gig. <\/p>\n

\"Kupczyk_Brzychcy\"Another of such highlights was surely the beautiful rendition of \u201cCatch The Rainbow\u201d preceded with \u201cRun With The Wolf\u201d. Both were performed by Radoslaw Kordowski (Hippocampus), a gifted Hammond player, keyboardist and sound engineer who claimed to have debuted behind the microphone that night, but having experienced his vocal excellence no one was too eager to believe him. Obviously, there couldn\u2019t have been a Dio tribute concert without perhaps the most recognized song of his self-named band, \u201cHoly Diver\u201d \u2013 but have you ever wondered what the three different voices can make out of the 1983 classic? The answer was given by Stodolak, Maliszewski and Szulc joining forces onstage. <\/p>\n

Next was Norbert \u2018Smola\u2019 Smolinski, introduced as \u201cRonnie James Dio reincarnated\u201d and for each and every Dio fan there was something strikingly familiar and Dio-esque in Smolinski\u2019s presence, moves and gestures indeed. And although his takes on Rainbow\u2019s \u201cSelf-Portrait\u201d and DIO\u2019s \u201cEgypt (The Chains Are On)\u201d were memorable, the absolute gem was the tearjerker ballad \u201cAs Long As It\u2019s Not About Love\u201d (Magica<\/em>, 2000). Surely more than a few tough metalheads dressed in denim and leather have shed a tear during this particular song. The tears was also in the performer\u2019s eyes when he talked about himself having a personal meeting with Ronnie James Dio after what turned out to be the last Dio\u2019s gig in Poland, in 2007 \u2013 as well as his beginnings with Holy Diver over thirty years ago. <\/p>\n

\"Scream<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most anticipated part of the show was the performance of the last name on the bill, Grzegorz Kupczyk, a legendary singer of CETI (formerly of Turbo). Despite some technical difficulties, the heavy metal legend managed meet the audience\u2019s demands with the melodic \u201cRainbow In The Dark\u201d followed by two songs of Black Sabbath\u2019s repertoire, \u201cNeon Knights\u201d and \u201cMob Rules.\u201d The former also marked the return of Piotr Brzychcy onstage. After this, the crowd certainly wasn\u2019t going to let the musicians go without an encore \u2013 singing the main motif from Sabbath\u2019s \u201cHeaven And Hell\u201d at the top of their lungs to bring the musicians back onstage. And so they returned. Almost complete line-up of the gig, conducted by the charismatic Sebastian Stodolak, performed the reprise of \u201cHeaven And Hell\u201d and \u201cChildren Of The Sea,\u201d the last notes of the latter being drowned out in the sea of roars, screams and squeals. <\/p>\n

A Polish Ronnie James Dio tribute gig was a very enjoyable, varied experience for a listener \u2013 but, above all, it proved two things. One is that as Ronnie James Dio sung in one of his last studio recordings, \u201cmetal will never die\u201d and although it\u2019s been four years since the legendary singer\u2019s death, he\u2019s still remembered for his legacy, the untouchable voice and manner, his imaginative lyrics and epic songs. The other is that there are still people \u2013 generations of people \u2013 who continue to carry the torch, a part of Ronnie James Dio\u2019s music and spirit living in each and every of them. So, as \u201cthe little man with the big voice\u201d would put it \u2013 let\u2019s stand up and shout together in loving memory of him, \u201c… long live rock ‘n’roll!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alexandra Mrozowska – Columnist — May 15th, 2014 at Centrum Promocji Kultury in Warsaw, Poland — The tribute concert form is probably the most demanding one \u2013 a tough nut to crack, if you […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":40669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10849],"tags":[307,9341,8891,9342],"class_list":{"0":"post-40658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arcconrvw2014","8":"tag-concert-review","9":"tag-king-of-rock-n-roll","10":"tag-scream-maker","11":"tag-the-ronnie-james-dio-tribute"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}