One of the more polarizing topics in the metal world in recent years was the Ronnie James Dio hologram. Dio’s wife and longtime manager, Wendy, booked numerous concerts and tours featuring a live band that was fronted by the hologram of her late husband.
The singer’s hologram was created by Eyellusion, and it made its debut at the Wacken Open Air festival in 2016 in front of more than 75,000 fans.
Many metal fans were divided on the “experiment,” which Wendy recently discussed on an episode of “Interviewing The Legends With Ray Shasho.”
“It worked for a while,” she said. “It was 50-50 — 50 percent of people loved it, 50 percent people hated it. It was done. It was an experiment. We did it. I think it worked out fine at the time. But I’m not doing that again.”
Wendy did share plans for future dates with the official Dio tribute band, Dio Disciples.
“We are planning to go out with Disciples next year, but I’m gonna use video of Ronnie and different eras from whatever pieces we have and it’ll be just a walk down the memory lane again with different stuff for Ronnie with the band playing. So, yeah, I’m working on that. We’ll have special effects with it. And hopefully it’ll be a good show.”
Wendy previously talked about retiring the hologram with the “Hangin’ & Bangin’: Artists On Lockdown” online show.
“When I first saw it, I cried,” she said. “Then I got used to it because it wasn’t Ronnie. And then we took it out. The first version was not that good. The second one was a lot better. But I decided that I don’t wanna do it anymore; I decided I want real Ronnie. So we’re working on a stage with the Dio band. Instead of having a hologram, it will have film of Ronnie with the live band playing and with special effects and everything else. So that’s what we’re working on.”
