As anyone who attended any of the shows will agree, the best reunion tour of the past year, hands down, was Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio (a.k.a. Heaven and Hell).
The seeds of the tour were planted in 2006 when Dio got together with his former Sabbath bandmates for the first time in 13 years to work on some new material to be tacked onto the album Black Sabbath the Dio Years. The sessions yielded the cool new songs “The Devil Cried,” “Shadow of the Wind” and “Ear in the Wall.” More significantly, the musicians had a great time and decided to embark on a world tour.
The band started with a handful of concerts in Canada. Then, the first U.S. show, March 30 at Radio City Music Hall was filmed for the DVD Live From Radio City Music Hall, which comes out August 28, as does a double CD of the same set.
On September 5 Heaven and Hell will launch their final North American tour in Binghamton, New York with Queensrÿche and Alice Cooper in tow. Dates run through October 6 in Irvine, California, after which the band members will again go their separate ways for a spell. Guitarist Tony Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler are expected to get back together with Ozzy Osbourne to work on a new Black Sabbath studio album and Dio plans to write and record a new record with his band Dio. However, after those projects are complete, anything’s possible, and while no one in Heaven and Hell has committed to recording or touring together again, none of the players have ruled it out.
Now that we’re bored you with that, here’s what you’ve been waiting for — the exclusive world premiere of Heaven and Hell’s video for “Shadow of the Wind”:
