Want to know more about the bands playing with Heaven and Hell? Here's all the important information that you need to know before going to the show.

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Heaven and Hell
It is the year 1981 and you're looking to see a band called Heaven and Hell. You'll never find them. In fact anyone you ask about the name will tell that it's the name of the last album that Black Sabbath put out. However, if you go to a Black Sabbath concert you'll find exactly what you were looking for. Right up on the stage. Tony Iommi on guitar, Geezer Butler on Bass, Vinnie Appice on drums, and Ronnie James Dio fronting the whole thing.

Black Sabbath started out in Birmingham, England in 1969 with teenage friends Iommi, Butler, Bill Ward on drums, and John "Ozzy" Osboune on vocals. Sabbath had a number of hit albums during the early '70's including 1971's Paranoid, 1972's Volume 4, and 1973's Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. 1979 saw Ozzy's departure for a solo career and was replaced by Rainbow's former frontman Ronnie James Dio.

Heaven and Hell was released in 1980, but Sabbath saw the departure of Bill Ward for health reasons. Ward was replaced by Vinnie Appice and mob rules came out in 1981. Both albums saw a commercial resurgence for the band, but Dio left by the release of Evil Live in January of '83 taking Appice with him to start his own band, appropriatly dubbed Dio. Sabbath saw a constantly rotating membership until Iommi reunited with Butler, Dio, and Appice and released 1992's Dehumanizer. Shortly after Dio and Appice once again parted ways with Black Sabbath.

In 1997 the original team of Osbourne, Iommi, Ward, and Butler, reunited to produce a new live album and went on tour. The tour finished in '99, and in 2001 it was announced that the line up would once again go on tour, this time headlining Ozzfest.

2006 saw the reurn of Dio and Appice to record three new songs for the release of a compilation album called Black Sabbath: The Dio Years. It was during this time that the group decided to go on tour. However, due to the future propect of touring with the original line up, and possibly their 2006 induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it was decided that the group shouldn't tour as Sabbath. Instead they opted to name the band after the first album that Dio appeared on with the group: Heaven and Hell.

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Alice Cooper

Alice Cooper began life as Vincent Damon Furnier on February 4th, 1948 in Detroit, Michigan. Originally Alice Cooper was the name of the band, but it wasn't too long before their lead singer adopetd the name for his persona, and not to long after that he took it for his real name. From the very beginning they utilized the stage to not just put on a concert, but a show, with the music influencing what was going to happen on stage. It wasn't until their third album, Love It To Death, that Alice Cooper met with commercial success. It was with the success of the album, the band's relocation from L.A. to Detroit, and the benefit of backing from a major label that Alice Cooper was able to put on a truly awe inspiring spectacle, complete with Alice's seeming electrocution courtesy of the addition of an electric chair to the show. It was this kind of gruesome act that enraged parents and enamored teenagers of the band and later inspired such acts as KISS, W.A.S.P., and Marylin Manson.

After a string of successful albums in the early to mid '70's the band decided to go its separate ways, with Alice Cooper embarking on a solo career. His first solo album, Welcome To My Nightmare, met with huge success and the stage show became even more elaborate. However, after the release of two more albums, it became readily appearent that Cooper had a severe alcohol problem. Following his U.S. tour in 1977, Alice Cooper had himself checked into a New York sanitarium for his addiction.

The '80's brought a number of albums that met with lukewarm success and could be consided somewhat radical, even for Alice Cooper. He also made a number of small movie appearences including Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. But it wasn't until 1989's Trash that he made a commercial resurgance with the success of the hit single "Poison".

To this day Alice Cooper continues to tour, although with a slightly stripped down version of the stage show and is slated to release a new album in the spring of '08. He is also an avid golfer and regularly participates in celebrity golf events, is a parter for a restuarant in Phienix and Cleveland called Cooper'stown, and has a daily syndicated radio show called Nights With Alice Cooper. In 2003 he received a star on the Hollywood walk of Fame, solidifying his role as a true hard rock icon.

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Queensryche

Nearly a decade before Nirvana changed the landscape of popular hard rock music, another band had come out of the now famous Seattle area of the northwest. In 1981 guitarist Michael Wilton and drummer Scott Rockenfield joined together with guitarist Chris DeGarmo and bassist Eddie Jackson to form a band called The Mob. They recruited the talents of vocalist Geoff Tate and produced a four track demo tape that included a song called Queen of the Reich. At the recommendation of their manager and perhaps inspired by that song on their demo, Queensryche was born.

Their first few major label releases, The Warning and Rage For Order, were more allong the lines of the musical stylings of such British metal acts as Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. Perhaps this was due to the fact that before performing their own material, the band had played local venues doing covers of Maiden and Priest songs. Regardless, it wasn't very long before Queensryche being developing their own style.

Taking cues from rock opera styled songs by Queen and Pink Floyd, Queensryche released concept album Operation: Mindcrime in 1988. The album met with phenominal success as did their following release Empire. The song Silent Lucidity from that album saw heavy airplay on the radio as well as MTV. They followed with their first headlining tour in which they performed Operation: Mindcrime in it's entirety. After the 18 month long tour, the band decided to take a hiatus.

When Queensryche returned with 1994's Promised Land, metal had fallen by the wayside as grunge dominated the airwaves of hard rock. Despite this, Promised Land would go platinum. It's follow up, Hear in The Now Frontier was a more stripped down Queensryche, leaving behind their more progressive rock roots and was not a commercial success. Shortly thereafter saw Chris DeGarmo's departure from the band.

Altough Queensryche no longer dominates the hard rock landscape, they do retain a large cult following and contine to tour and produce new studio albums. 2006 saw the release of the long awaited sequel to their 1988 hit with Operation: Mindcrime II.