Live Evil

The final album with Ronnie James Dio and Vinny Appice until their return 10 years later on Dehumanizer.

Considered by the band to be their "first" live album, as "Live at Last" (1980) was released by the band's managers without their authorization and they never considered it an official release.

This album was involved in controversy due to the situation that occurred within the band. Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler were in charge of producing the album, but Ronnie James Dio and Vinny Appice entered the studio during the nights to change the mix and make the vocals and drums more audible. This made the band members dissatisfied with the final mix, and as a consequence, the departures of Ronnie and Vinny from the band.
This was solved with the super deluxe edition of the album in 2023 which includes a remixed version.

Due to the acrimonious nature of their split with Black Sabbath just before the release of the album, Ronnie James Dio is billed only as "Ronnie Dio" and Vinny Appice is listed as a guest musician despite having been a full member of the band.

According to Ronnie James Dio, this album was originally going to be released in August. Unfortunately, this coincided with the release of Ozzy Osbourne's live album "Speak at the Devil", which consisted solely of Black Sabbath songs, and outsold Sabbath's live album itself.

The original 80′s US CD version (Warner) had 2 discs in 2 Jewel Cases. The extra space allowed for the inclusion of "War Pigs" from the vinyl version, which is not on the original Vertigo CD print.
Re-released in 1996 in the Castle Remasters serie on a single CD, which does have all the tracks, but the in-between song banter of R. J. Dio is cut almost to zero, and "Fluff" is cut off.
Re-released in 2008 (as part of The Rules of Hell box set and individually) & 2010 (UK). These remasters have all of the cut of stuff restored.

Recording information:

Recorded live with The Record Plant Mobile, Los Angeles, on April 23 & 24th, 1982 at Seattle, May 12th, 1982 at Dallas & May 13th, 1982 at San Antonio, United States.
It is unknown which tracks come from which concert.
Mixed at The Record Plant, Los Angeles, United States.

Identifiers:

Barcode: 07599237421