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Good things come to those who wait. Ronnie James Dio has quite a career behind him and this is his first DVD - frankly some bands that have two or three DVDs should not even have one, and Dio should have at least a couple out by now. Nevertheless, he had to start somewhere and this DVD featuring the excellent "Killing the Dragon" tour kicks off his DVD adventure pretty well. The DVD was filmed at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City in December 2002. I had seen that tour in Toronto in July 2002 and therefore I was looking forward to this DVD. The first thing I noticed is that the band didn't seem to be in as good a shape as it was a few months earlier - a few months on the road have got to take its toll on the whole team. Still, the performance is quite admirable and is very enjoyable to watch on screen (it would be even better if my TV didn't suck!) The only thing that bothered me a bit is that at times Dio's singing was either a bit shaky or he was intentionally altering the vocal melodies, and I find that this took a little away from some of the songs - nothing to lose sleep over, but I would have preferred a more close-to-the-original rendition.. Matter of taste, mind you! :)

The show is well filmed with a lot of great shots, and the scene changes are not too bouncy either (refer to Maiden's Rock in Rio if you want to know what I mean by that...) Really, there isn't much to complain about regarding the live show: Dio does his little talk between each songs, the crowd is quite enthusiastic, and the set list is pretty good. I found it a bit funny that he seemed to try to justify the Magica album just before playing "Lord of the Last Day" - probably due to a number of bad reviews at the time. Judging by the crowd's reaction, they didn't seem to be from the "Magica sucks!" school of thought! :) All in all, a very enjoyable show - mandatory if you never got the chance to witness him live for yourself.

The extras are a bit on the thin side, however. I was expecting a longer interview, considering the length of his career. Instead he pretty much just answers a few "existential" questions. Frankly the interview bored me. Look at interviews on DVDs from Black Sabbath, Jag Panzer, Behemoth, Vader, etc... Hopefully this is was just a matter of budget and a future DVD will present a more in-depth interview, it would be interesting to hear him cover his whole career. The Behind the Scene footage is also pretty thin, really not much of interest there - they could just have left it out. There's a photo gallery with a good number of photos, and finally the video for the song "Push".

Overall, a good DVD, but not excellent. Very good show, but seriously lacking in the extras. Still beats the crap out of a good number of DVDs I have here. Recommended.

Track listing:

1. Killing The Dragon
2. Egypt/Children of the Sea
3. Push
4. Drum Solo
5. Stand up and Shout
6. Rock and Roll
7. Don’t Talk to Strangers
8. Man on the Silver Mountain
9. Guitar Solo
10. Long Live Rock and Roll
11. Lord of the Last Day
12. Fever Dream
13. Holy Diver
14. Heaven and Hell
15. The Last in Line
16. Rainbow in the Dark
17. We Rock