Dio: Intermission EP (1986)
With so many albums to buy and so little money to spend, I could rarely justify spending my teenage pennies on live EPs like Dio's Intermission, Accept's Kaizoku-Ban, or even Slayer's Live Undead until recent years, when I started rebuilding my vinyl collection.
Granted, I didn't think twice about purchasing Maiden Japan back in '85, but that was on a completely different level of 'must-have' metal.
Anyway, the aptly named Intermission was how Ronnie James Dio bought some time between '85's Sacred Heart and '87's Dream Evil, and announced the replacement of original Dio guitarist Vivian Campbell with former Rough Cutt shredder Craig Goldy.
Anything to maintain career momentum during a busy '86 that earlier found Ronnie, Campbell, and bassist Jimmy Bain recruiting dozens of fellow metal-heads to lend their voices and guitars to the Hear 'n Aid charity project amid almost incessant touring.
And what a tour it was: one that went down in heavy metal lore thanks to one of the era's most ambitious and most talked about special effects extravaganzas, headlined by a certain towering animatronic monster!
I'm of course talking about 'Denzel the Dragon,' as he was cruelly nicknamed by the mordant U.K. press, and with whom the diminutive Dio would slay on a nightly basis, but who gained immortality on Intermission's cover. (*)
Enough with the surrounding details, though ...
Another reason I passed on this EP back in '86 was that I'd grown a little weary of Ronnie's schtick and I simply wasn't bowled over by the efficient but unvarying performances of Dio favorites "King of Rock and Roll," "Rainbow in the Dark," "Sacred Heart," and "We Rock."
When they did deviate from standard studio album arrangements, it was to embark on what I call Ronnie's "Medley Madness," which, to my knowledge, was introduced as far back as his stint with Black Sabbath for the Live Evil rendition of "Heaven and Hell" and "The Sign of the Southern Cross."
On Intermission, that meant forcibly stuffing brief snippets of Rainbow's "Long Live Rock 'n' Roll" and "Man On the Silver Mountain" into Dio's "Rock 'n' Roll Children" in an irritating attempt to remind us he'd sung for a bunch of great bands.
Yeah, Ronnie, we know!
Anyway, the EP's sixth and final offering was a decent, not exceptional, new studio track entitled "Time to Burn," which officially welcomed Goldy into the fold in time for the second half of the year-long Sacred Heart tour.
In conclusion: like most intermissions, not everyone found it necessary to leave their "seats" between Dio's album-length "acts," to check out this EP and, in my case, it was to walk out of the "theater" entirely, never to return for any of Ronnie's future solo endeavors.
* Years later, Ronnie would have the last laugh when he named his ninth studio LP, Killing the Dragon.
More Dio: Holy Diver, The Last in Line, Sacred Heart.
