The very mention of the words ‘hologram tour’ make it sound as though we’re living in some sort of futuristic wonderland that sounded too far-fetched even for the writers of The Jetsons, but we live in 2018 where this sort of thing is now amazingly the norm. Now, the widow of rock legend Ronnie James Dio has defended the idea of her husband touring as a hologram, telling naysayers not to criticise it until they’ve seen it.

Back in 2010, Ronnie James Dio passed away at the age of 67. Just two years later, the idea of a late artist performing via hologram reached mainstream attention when Tupac Shakur managed to perform at Coachella in 2012, despite having passed away 16 years previously.

Since then, there has been plenty of talk of more hologram tours. While Prince was almost resurrected at this year’s Superbowl before that idea was shot down, Australia’s first hologram tour almost took place this year, before Roy Orbison’s posthumous appearance was cancelled. Likewise, ABBA is supposedly still set to make an appearance on Aussie shores in 2019, but we’ll see how that turns out.

However, last year, it was rumoured that the hologram of Ronnie James Dio was set to tour Australia, just one year after it first made its live debut. Despite these plans, which ultimately fell though, fans of Dio have been very vocal about their perceived notion of this hologram, leading to Wendy Dio, the late rocker’s widow, to step in and defend the very concept.

Speaking to ‘Whiplash with Full Metal Jackie’ on US radio station KLOS (via Blabbermouth), Wendy Dio voiced her support of the technology, noting that this is just another way for Dio to break new ground.

“I think that Ronnie was an innovator of heavy metal music, so why not be an innovator of technology?” she questioned. “And I think technology is coming a long way with holograms — a lot of people are doing it now. And I think the reason is because we are losing all of our innovators; everybody is getting older. And we need to keep them alive and keep their memory and their music alive.

“It’s like when people first came out with a CD or a cassette: ‘Ooh, we don’t want that.’ But then it was the way of technology.”

“We took it out to see if there was an audience for it, because it’s been very… some people like it, some people don’t; there is a lot of talk about that,” she continued. “We wanted to see if there was actually an audience for it. And we took it to Europe, and we found there definitely was an audience for it. The people that came loved it.”

“I think the people that say, ‘Ooh, this is terrible,’ should at least see it,” she concluded. “Don’t criticize it if you haven’t seen it. It’s done with love. The band love doing it. And we just wanna keep Ronnie’s memory and his music alive.

So whatever your opinion of Dio performing as a hologram may be, just remember that it’ll probably be a lot better than you think it will be. Nevertheless, we can’t help but raise one eyebrow in curiosity when this very topic is mentioned.

Check out the Ronnie James Dio hologram performing live:

The article was originally published on Tone Deaf