Dios reunion show recalls just how transcendent (and timeless) their first album remains, 10 years after

Kevin Bronson on
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Every psych-pop rugrat in the city should have been at the Echo for the Dios reunion on Sunday night, but it was 4/20 and, who knows, maybe they were on their couches practicing being psychedelic.

This was reason enough to man up, though: Dios, who later went by Dios (Malos) after catching some legal flak from Ronnie James Dio for their name, reunited to mark the 10-year anniversary of their self-titled debut album, which everybody including Pitchfork liked and which remains a singular document of West Coast pop. In other words, it relies on nuance and compositional grace (and maybe some subversiveness too) rather than just plundering those who, in decades prior, serenaded Technicolor sunsets with guitars in hand. And in 2004, hardly anybody else was doing it.

So the crowd at the Echo on Sunday was good but not the line-down-the-block that Dios’ music deserves. And despite the fact that frontman Joel Morales said the band had only two rehearsals, its set shimmered with transcendent moments. Long-timers had to struggle to keep their eyes dry during the opening triage of “Nobody’s Perfect,” “Starting Five” and “The Uncertainty of How Things Are,” and more sublime moments followed with “All Said and Done,” the seldom-played-live “Meeting People” and the drop-dead-pretty, sing-along-worthy “You Got Me All Wrong.” [See what I mean?]

It was the first (and probably only) time Dios played their first album front to back. During the course of the set, Dios’ ranks swelled to as many as nine – “They’ve become Dios Maximus,” somebody wisecracked – with Morales joined by original members, brother Kevin, J.P. Caballero and James Cabeza de Vaca, and abetted by Luke Paquin, Gabriel Pacheco, Aaron Bustos, Sean Johnson, Sean O’Connell and Trevor Beld-Jimenez. Morales, who now makes music and works as a producer under the name Joel Jerome, conducted the proceedings, which involved a bunch of instrument swapping and such, like a kindly uncle.

At the end, there was a cover the Beatles’ 46-year-old “White Album” cut “Long, Long, Long,” followed by the exclamation point: a cover of Black Flag’s “Nervous Breakdown” with Caballero singing. Caballero, who now plays in White Arrows, ended up bouncing through the crowd, in his Hawaiian shirt and hoodie, with crowd members dispensing hugs and shouting Black Flag lyrics at him.

It was a triumphant moment for a band that deserved more triumphant moments than it got back in the Aughts. Suffice to say there’s probably a soap opera, or documentary film, to be made about Dios. Or maybe, with Morales working with so many young artists around town now, the story is still developing. For those who got off their couches, we’ll always have 4/20.

Thanks to Chris Ziegler for his assistance with this review.