dinizintheoven wrote:Just the once, in 2004. I think most of what I saw in that set was the Rainbow covers...
You lucky bastard. I know he sang 'The Eyes' that time. Saw it on Youtube many years ago but can't find it again,
it was one of the best live versions I have heard of that song.
Dio holds a special place in my heart, I had no idea who he was, that time when I placed my dads vinyl of 'Rainbow Rising'
onto the turntable and heard 'Tarot Woman' for the first time. I thought the cover to Rising was cool and decided to try it.
Guess I was in my low teens. Today, of course, I am more educated and I have every studio album he ever put out solo,
with Elf, with Rainbow, with Sabbath, and even the 50s and 60s stuff and the odd guest appearances.
The kind of range he had and the genres he went through over the decades will probably forever be unprecedented. I'm sure most will agree.
What saddens me still, is that I was meant to see him sing live for the first time ever around christmas time '09.
I bought the tickets already five or six months prior. But by November, the cancer announcement came and all concerts were canceled.
But it wasn't even a concert I was going to, Dio was supposed to do a gig at a very small venue, maybe 200 people at the most, and just 5 minutes from my house.
Dio announced he would slay the cancer dragon and honor all the gigs he had canceled at a later date. Well, that never happened. Still gutted.
dinizintheoven wrote:Seen them live a couple of times - usually at Wacken - and there's fun for all the family in playing "spot the Black Sabbath riff"!
Well, they don't call Leif Edling (founder, bassist) the bastard child of Iommi for nothing.
He has mentioned many times how Sabbath influenced him. And like Iommi with Black Sabbath, Edling is the founder and only one to appear on all Candlemass studio albums.
I was introduced to Candlemass by a co-worker, and now I have every studio album. As well as a few solo albums by Edling. I have been to two christmas gigs with Candlemass,
ironically at the very same venue where I was supposed to see Dio.
Great thing is, this place is only five minutes from home, and it has a garage right underneath it.
So both times I went by car in the middle of December, wearing only a tshirt, even though it was -15C. Those who didn't know about the garage must have thought I was a nutter.
I have run into Leif Edling on two occasions after having been to his Candlemass gigs. First time in a record store when I was picking up a Camel album,
I saw him riffle through some records and recognized him immediately.
I went up to him to let him know I really enjoyed his kind of dark music, and he said 'thanks, cool'.
The second time was just this winter, I was in a grocery store to get some stuff, and I saw him picking out bread over at the bread shelfs.
Turns out he lives about ten minutes from me. Small world.
Being one who has listened to every single studio album by Candlemass, not just the more famous ones, yes I can agree that much is inspired by Sabbath,
perhaps in some songs a lot, but I don't notice anymore. The last decade with Lowe hasn't had much in common with Sabbath for example.
Jocke1 wrote:The Newsted-track was way too repetitive towards the end for my taste.
Speaking of Newsted, I was at this secret Metallica gig:
http://www.metallica.com/tour/nov-16-1997-stockholm.aspI say secret, because they weren't supposed to be playing anything at all. I went there because they were pre-releasing the 'Re-load' album two days
before the worldwide release, and they were only supposed to sign the new album for those purchasing it, nothing more.
And there would be a limited admittance, so my dad drove me there very early, around 7am. They opened the doors at something like 1pm, there were only maybe twenty people ahead of me in line, and then all of a sudden
they lit up a stage at the back of the room and the guys came out playing a mini-concert of ten songs (link ^). No one was prepared for that.
I remember the headlines the next day read something like "Metallica plays secret concert for fans". We were only one or two hundred people in there, and apparently
1,500+ were outside, being denied entrance : ).
I still have the ticket.
Jocke1 wrote:Driving to the arena, it was pitch black outside and snowing quite a bit.
I found some pictures, and it wasn't really pitch black, but it was about to be. You can see the arena in the distance:
![Image](http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s20/jocke__1/konsert_zps7d6d2b87.jpg~original)
![Image](http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s20/jocke__1/konsert2_zpsd5fad14d.jpg~original)