R.I.P. Ronnie...1942-2010

In 1987, my Dead Best Friend, Ed told me that he had tickets to a show at Sandstone and wanted to know if I wanted to go.  He always asked me to do stuff like that because I had the car.  Mmmm, my first car.  1976 Pontiac Grand Prix - with T-tops....

That isn't an actual picture of my car.  I am not sure if any actually exist.  If they do, I'm pretty sure that I had a mullet, too.

Anyway, Ed had tickets to see this band Dio.  I had no idea who Dio was, but Ed informed me that Dio was none other than Ronnie F'ing James Dio

and he was in Black Sabbath after Ozzy got kicked out.  He was going to kick our ass and we were going to have a blast.

Now understand that I was not a big Heavy Metal fan in high school.  I liked Huey Lewis and the News, Whodini and Herbie Hancock.  (Still do...)

Went to the concert and Ed was right.  I was totally blown away.  When Ronnie took that fake sword and killed the demon...I was hooked.  That was the summer that my music tastes changed. 

I started listening to Metallica, Van Halen and others.  One of the greatest concert events of my life was Monsters of Rock.  Kingdom Come, Metallica, Dokken, Scorpions and Van Halen.  If you click on the previous link, Wikipedia will have a single sentence blurb about the food fight at Arrowhead Stadium.  I'll never forget it.  It was totally true.  60,000 people had a food fight.  Super cool.

Anyway, for many years I had a Dio poster up in my room.  Yes, it was upside down.  How else could you read "DEVIL?"

Thank you Ronnie James Dio for your personal impact in my musical life.  You were never Ozzy's replacement.  You will always just be, Dio.