Ronnie James Dio Hologram To Go On World Tour

Rock legend Ronnie James Dio may have died in 2010, but he is all set to go on tour by the end of 2017 – kind of.

A hologram version of Dio will go on tour beginning in November backed by a band who played with the first iteration of the hologram at last year’s Wacken festival in Germany. The band consists of guitarist Craig Goldy, drummer Simon Wright, keyboardist Scott Warren, and bassist Bjorn Englen. Goldy, Wright, and Warren were members of Dio, the band Dio was in at the time of his death. The group has since been playing under the name of The Dio Disciples.

According to those who were close to Dio, the revolutionary hard-rock singer would have been fully supportive of the idea.

“In 1986, for the Sacred Heart Tour, Ronnie and I created the Crystal Ball with Ronnie filmed and speaking in a suspended crystal ball effect, done with back projection, which was the closest we could get to a hologram,” Wendy Dio, the singer’s widow, told Rolling Stone. “Ronnie was always wanting to experiment with new stage ideas and was a big Disney fan. With this said, I am sure he is giving us his blessing with this hologram project.”

“It gives the fans that saw Ronnie perform an opportunity to see him again and new fans that never to to see him a chance to see him for the first time. We hope everyone will enjoy the show that we have all worked so hard to put together.”

Eyellusion, the Hollywood based company behind the project, provides “end-to-end hologram production needs for the live music market,” according to their website.

They debuted the Dio hologram earlier this year in London.

“We are doing this because we were all a family and when a family has lost their beloved family member, they try to keep the memory of their lost beloved one alive,” Goldy, the guitarist told Rolling Stone. “That is the spirit behind all that we do. When we perform on this tour, for me, it is a memorial service in the form of a rock concert.”

The tour will begin in Europe on November 30 in Helsinki and continue through Europe through the remainder of 2017. It will then move to South American, Australia, and Asia, eventually making its way to the US in the spring of 2018.