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Lost in Hollywood Again
Graham Bonnet has appeared on the Different Stages Radio podcast. The occasion was an impending release of his new live album Lost in Hollywood Again, recorded in 2024 at the storied Los Angeles club Whisky A Go Go. The album is due out on December 12, 2025 via Frontiers, and Graham mentions a studio album also being in the works, with Bruce Dickinson making a guest appearance there.
Lost in Hollywood Again track listing:
- Eyes Of The World
- All Night Long
- Love’s No Friend
- Making Love
- Since You’ve Been Gone
- Keys Solo
- Lazy
- Imposter
- S.O.S.
- Desert Song
- Drum Solo
- Night Games
- Into The Night
- Assault Attack
- Too Young To Die, Too Drunk To Live
- Lost In Hollywood
Graham Bonnet — Vocals
Conrado Pesinato — Guitars
Beth-Ami Heavenstone — Bass
Alessandro Bertoni — Keyboards
Francis Cassol — Drums
Since You’ve Been Gone:
Night Games (originally off the 1981 Graham’s solo album Line-Up):
And if you think that this sounds a bit too clinical and there was, ahem, quite a bit of postprocessing involved, you are not alone. Here is another video, with the technical analysis of the release and comparison to an audience recording:
Thanks to Uwe for the heads-up, and to Blabbermouth for additional info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
The most post-processed live recording since Get You Ya Ya’s Out. Vanity will make you do stoopid things sometimes. It’s so disappointing… words can’t express it. But I’m sure Uwe will find enough words for both of us.
December 4th, 2025 at 02:00Does he actually spell song # 8 as “imposter”? The correct word is “impostor”.
December 4th, 2025 at 02:06I love Bonnet’s voice and demeanor, but it is fair to say that he has always been more fearless than note-perfect live, he’s no Ronnie Dio as regards tonal accuracy. The other side of the coin is of course that he attempts (and often succeeds in) things live, other vocalists don’t dare and only dogs can hear. Doogie White once said that Graham is the hardest of all Rainbow singers to emulate.
But this endless polishing of vocal tracks just to achieve perfection is bothersome and the backing vocals are certainly hilariously overdone on this particular recording. I’ve seen Graham and his band live a few times, he’s a force of nature and the times I have seen he did sing live (his voice deteriorated slightly over the course of the gig) as he obviously does here (with his siginigicant other on bass casting worried looks as if he was overstretching himself):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNdMdqhpnqQ
But the backing vocals never achieved the Queen/Meatloaf magnificence we hear on the doctored recordings! 🤣
Speaking of Ms Beth-Ami Heavenstone, a former Sunset Strip music scene regular, she is not only his bassist and partner, but also his manager. Straight out of a romcom, the two did not meet in the music business, but by coincidence/fate in a discussion group for parents of autistic children. And the rest was history as they say. Here is an interview with her
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5Om8ABIu2w&t=194s
(Graham enters the scene impromptu in an Ozzy type cameo @42:20.)
which will introduce you to assorted mysteries such as:
– Graham and her taking baths together every day. (And what they do there. Spoiler: They have “morning tubs” and “nightime tubs”.)
– Graham feigning – as husbands do – bad hearing to escape her commands/instructions. She whistles for him, but assures us “He’s not a dog!”
– Like other well-kmown singers, Graham has a preference for languishing naked at home.
– Graham and her being avid bird watchers.
– Speaking of birds, she wanted to name Graham’s band post-ALCATRAZZ … wait for it … ALBBATROSS … 😂
– The bird topic doesn’t stop: The Bonnets have two hens providing eggs for the family.
– Did we mention birds yet? The Bonnets have finches at their window, but not sandhill cranes like their interviewer has.
https://projectupland.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Sandhill-cranes-Antigone-canadensis.jpg
– The Bonnets are a gluten-free household.
– The reason why Doogie White still needs to properly apologize to Graham.
– Beth-Ami’s candid admission that realizing she wasn’t that great a bassist made her “dress more sexy in bands” for job security (a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do!). “I’m not claiming to be Jaco Pastorious in the first place, but, hey, I’m the only one with boobs in the band!”
I think my bass colleague is great, really refreshing and candid.
December 4th, 2025 at 02:06There was a Kansas live album recorded and released a couple of years ago. That album was so autotuned that it sounded like a robot singing.
The old fart that I am is slowly coming to terms with the fact that kids these days think that all music need to be pitch-perfect and that everything needs to be done to a click track. In fact, even having instructions(!) in your in-ear monitors seems normal these days. “Chorus coming up in 3-2-1”, etc.
But I can’t understand when these old guys do this kind of thing. There was a rumour for a while that Graham used pre-recorded vocals live. I went to see him here in my hometown a year or so ago and could quickly hear that nothing was pre-recorded. Did he sound like in 1980? No, of course not. As with most people we discuss here, they are old and have changed. But was it acceptable? Yes, absolutely! And I am not one to shy away from saying it was crap, if it had been.
I have always preferred live albums over studio albums. Mostly, I guess, because the bands I like stretch out a bit live, and I like to hear the difference in each show, even if it is the singer having a bad night. But in the past, you just didn’t release something you weren’t satisfied with. Or you just said, “f*** it, it’s live!” And in the past, it was expensive to make a live recording. These days, you can easily record every show on tour and then pick and choose the best performances. In my eyes, that is a little bit cheating as well, but it’s way better than autotuning the crap out of someone who never was famous for being the most pitch-perfect singer in the world.
Most likely, the album was handed over to some cheap young engineer mixing this in his/her computer in their bedroom. After it’s done, Bonnet won’t listen to it anyway. If someone buys this, let me know the credits for mixing. I tried to find it online but failed.
December 4th, 2025 at 07:57Interesting comments regarding Kansas using autotune on the vocals, that wouldn’t surprise me these days. I don’t listen to them anymore as Steve Walsh left the band about 15 years ago and his voice was shot well before then. The live album from 1992 ‘Live at the Whisky’ I own and I played it a lot back then. The internet rumour mill revealed that the lead vocals were allegedly re recorded in the studio as Walsh was so out of it that his singing was terrible. More disappointing is the latest revelation that Robin Trower’s live album from 1975 had the vocals redone in the studio due to a flaw in the live recording. Before I heard about that I had watched a few different live recordings of that band from that era and James Dewar’s vocals were definitely live on those, different in there delivery each time and having a few less than ‘perfect’ performances on each song. So yes indeed, that live album from ’75 and I now feel cheated on that one and do not listen to it anymore. no wonder we thought that James vocals were exceptional on that live album. Regarding the in ear monitors counting in the chorus, is that true or a joke. I could easily think it true as things have certainly been dumbed down these days. Sort of reminds me of being at school and learning to sing in the choir, 1,2,3,4 and begin. When learning songs or a hymn that we didn’t know at all. Have things gone that bad today. Yes it appears they have. Cheers.
December 4th, 2025 at 10:58Regarding in-ears: Ever thought of how bands can start a song all together with out a count-in as in the old days?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1P6iZEMVnhA
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ng3N9Rijg8I
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OeR9d_aHIsI
And maybe some older musicians use it to fight dementia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9kJPRLKD5o
December 4th, 2025 at 13:25I can attest to what Svante says, my son’s gf is a professional drummer in LA working for pop acts both live and in the studio, in-ear cues and click tracks in both environments are second nature to her. Emilia is in her mid-twenties and doesn’t know a different world. To her playing without a click is baffling and reckless.
Autotune and pitch correction have become a state of the art effect on current pop releases. Someone who listens to just pop music of, say, the last 15 to 20 years has likely heard the majority of his music with autotuned and pitch-corrected voices. It has by now become such a way of life that artists and producers employ it because they want that slightly clinical sound, not that there is anything major to really correct (let’s face it: a lot of people don’t even notice vocals that are too low or high pitched unless the deviation is crass).
We tend to think of K-pop and female dance pop acts, but the phenomenon has long been omnipresent. Listen to those three lovely siblings harmonizing jointly here “in their kitchen” or “in a car park garage”:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0u-WbxYXgxg
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zPFdrbIuifk
I’m not saying they can’t sing or have no talent, but what you hear are not their original vocals in natural surroundings, but pitch-corrected studio recordings of each individual voice set to videos trying to make things look “natural”.
It’s long crept into rock too. Graham’s new release is just a little crasser than usual – btw, Svante, the guitarist Conrado Pesinato produced it. KISS, Eagles etc all work with pitch correction and prerecorded vocal tracks, sometimes even containing the lead vocal. The new album by John Fogerty revisiting his CCR hits doesn’t feature a voice of how he sings today, but an AI-augmented studio creation and amalgamation of his real current voice and what AI “thinks” it once was:
https://youtu.be/nkElr7Vb0Cc
https://youtu.be/mu3jTBWGBls
And only a few years ago the Queen fan constituency was up in arms when they released archive live recordings with Freddie Mercury’s vocals pitch corrected – Freddie, much like Bonnet, was a great and daring singer, but not always pitch-perfect.
When Martin Turner of Wishbone Ash oversaw the rerelease of their milestone album Argus many years ago, he did “what I always wanted to do”, namely pitch corrected the backing vocals which had turned out a little flat at the time without anyone noticing then.
Robert Halford, certainly a very a accurate singer both live and in the studio, already admitted 10 years ago that he is – just a few notches – using pitch correction live to put his mind at ease on an off night “like everyone does”. I know this is heresy here, but if it was revealed one day that Ian Gillan uses a bit of pitch correction live and in the studio too, I wouldn’t be shattered about it. I expect it. Alas!, you may now crucify me for that stance, but to some extent it now recording standard even with classic rock artists.
After all, I’m a culprit myself, ‘fessin’ up time: 10 to 15 years ago, I was in a studio with my then indie band with a female singer. Pitch correction had just been introduced in that studio. She was a good singer and reasonably accurate, but had zero recording experience and it showed (also her nerves in a new environment). Had we recorded all vocal tracks to perfection we would have likely needed so many attempts it would have worn out her voice. So instead we took performances that were like 95% percent ‘right’ (if not squeaky clean ‘right’) and corrected the bum notes via pitch correction. She never even noticed it when she heard the recordings back the other day and the producer and I never told her either. 😈 And if sparingly done it of course already sounded natural back then and not like some robot voice.
But I caution anyone to think that live albums were less doctored in the past. The vocals of Judas Priest’s 1979 Unleashed in the
StudioEast? Sung “live” in the studio in one go in the aftermath because Rob’s voice was worse for wear on the Japan tour, he has never denied that, it‘s even in his bio. Thin Lizzy’s epochal Live & Dangerous? According to producer Tony Visconti about 25% live, the rest overdubbed in the aftermath. UFO’s legendary Strangers in the Night live album? Whole songs played in the studio and if Michael Schenker would have had his way he would have redone ALL of his solos in German Perfektionismus. When he wasn’t allowed to by producer Ron Nevison, he threw a fit. KISS Alive? KISS at a soundcheck in a hall with later studio augmentation more like. Frampton Comes Alive? Yeah, it was a good performance in the studio with audience noise and applause taken from a Grand Funk Railroad live recording. That doesn’t mean that Frampton wasn’t a good live act, but an excellent live recording of a good performance depends on so many things, it is sometimes sheer luck to attain great performance, no glaring mistakes, recording equipment all works properly, everyone is in tune throughout, microphones are well set up and good venue acoustics all together.DP fans are spoiled and tend to think that all live albums even by other artists are somewhat lesser forms of Made in Japan, an undiluted and untampered with documentation of what went on that night. That has never been the case, vast amounts of classic 70s and 80s releases of live albums were already doctored in the studio. A lot of live albums are like a movie – they are PUT TOGETHER to create the illusion of life.
Sorry for bustin‘ some myths!!! 😎
December 4th, 2025 at 15:44@4
“I went to see him here in my hometown a year or so ago and could quickly hear that nothing was pre-recorded”
– alright Svante 😃👍🏼
“Did he sound like in 1980? No, of course not.”
– well not even Ian sounds like he did like when he was a young man. But for me that’s not the point either.
I find it to be crucial that the vocalist is true to himself. It would be completely irrelevant if he tried to sound like a young singer, (just like actors who won’t admit themselves to grow old and end up being a horrible caricature of their former self 😨) but if I can detect a development in the voice, just like Ian, I am thrilled 😊
What really matters to me is not their outfit on stage 😉 or if their hair is perfect! Even if they have bought their t-shirts at a gas station – I am just satisfied if the person on stage have something to give out to us.
No it’s the person behind I love to get a feeling of, it is so much better than a play back situation that may be perfect, but where the person is completely missing.
I have always liked Graham 😊 and I admired him for not submitting to RB’s harsh ruling 😄
December 4th, 2025 at 16:01Oh it seems I have been fooled again! After listening to the first single Since You Been Gone (who would’ve guessed) on YT I thought the singing was too good to be true. Knowing that a lot of live recordings got and get some taking care of in the studio I mentioned that and was told from the bandcamp that wasn’t necessary as Graham would sing phenomenal.
December 4th, 2025 at 20:41“Regarding the in ear monitors counting in the chorus, is that true or a joke.”
Absolutely no joke, band members get instructed like that all the time. It probably also has to do with the fact that these days touring band line-ups vary greatly from who recorded the songs for single artists so not everyone on stage is as familiar with the tracks as a band would be which has played them for decades.
You want to hear what the drummer of Shania Twain hears while they (Elija is trans/non-binary and prefers “they” as a pronoun so let’s do that here) drum live? Here you are, Herr MacGregor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOi68s_TevM
And it’s not just a click track – bass, guitar riffs, syncopated rhythm guitar and all the backing and atmospheric vocals are prerecorded, the band and Shania just “fill in” what’s left to “create” a live experience. That said, “caged in” as Elijah is/are (this is hard to do with these pronouns), they still manage to drum with gusto. It’s not that these people can’t play, but it’s quite different from what Paicey does/has been doing all these years.
This is illuminating too:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0DFZL787r_o
December 4th, 2025 at 21:00I have never ever thought about that to be honest. Still old school and the drummer tapping the hi-hat for the count in or another musician doing that on their instruments perhaps and also the musicians looking at each other. The modern technological world strikes again to rid the world of old school hacks. We are doomed, doomed I say. Thanks for the information links. Cheers.
December 4th, 2025 at 21:17@6
Like a bunch of automatons…
December 4th, 2025 at 21:35@5 I, too, feel cheated about many of the live albums I heard. My solution is listening to live records that have been released decades after recording and meant mostly to be collectors’ items rather than chart conquerors. E.g. I much prefer the Atlanta festival recordings by the Allman Brothers Band to the Fillmore recordings, famed yet heavily edited. Even in the Purple universe, the only live recording that I’m sure of the 100% authenticity is the bootleg of their concert in by home town that my friend did. He smuggled a mini-disc recorder to the venue and made a recording of an abhorrent quality. It is still quite an artefact and a genuine one.
December 5th, 2025 at 07:23I have long given up believing that live albums are really 100% live – even of the famous ones most aren’t. Together with the timeless statement “I’m still a virgin – it was a PE/sports accident …” claims about live albums being undoctored and unaugmented representations of a certain live event are among the most prevalent modern day white lies. Made in Japan is a salient exception – most likely by chance (DP weren’t as reluctant to polish live albums in later years if need be).
But I don’t obsess over it. Frampton Comes Alive, KISS Alive, Thin Lizzy’s Live & Dangerous, Priest’s Unleashed In The East and UFO’s Strangers In The Night are still enjoyable listens that give you an idea how the bands might have sounded to you on a very good night.
December 5th, 2025 at 13:12Speaking of automatons, there’s no way that album art isn’t slop.
December 5th, 2025 at 13:29I kinda liked that even though in graphic novel/comic book style, it makes no attempt to make Graham look younger than he is – that is rare in this day and age …
December 5th, 2025 at 15:50Deception is fraud and it is deliberately misleading consumers into a belief that it is something that it isn’t. We have been duped by the powers that be and that includes the artists themselves at times. The fact that it is accepted as a reality and is OK says it all in this world. It is ok to be corrupt, false and spin a load of bullshit, just to make money or increase the standing of a business entity. They don’t say it on the recording do they? Well some may a little bit, hidden out of site in the liner notes, but most do not. And the other thing I have noticed is that most of the musicians rarely get asked about that with the live album they have released. Well, in today’s world maybe a few have years after the event. I remember Frampton back pedalling a little while ago when someone repeatedly asked him about his famous live double album. Cheers.
December 5th, 2025 at 20:44No attempt was made to make it look like 2025 Graham Bonnet either. It’s more like they instructed the AI to “draw” (a statistically plausible arrangement of pixels resembling) lines on (a statistically plausible arrangement of pixels resembling) Graham Bonnet’s face from 1979 and then called it good enough. The hair, the mouth, none of it looks like Bonnet actually does today. It’s trash.
Imagine for a moment that instead of autotuning Graham’s vocals to death, they had replaced the entire band by a Suno track promoted to sound like the Graham Bonnet band. The tracks would have a statistically plausible distribution of high and low frequencies in it, and you might be fooled if you didn’t know anything about musical instruments, or if you weren’t paying attention, but when you listen properly, that low end is not a bass guitar. That high end is not a guitar solo. And so on.
December 6th, 2025 at 12:46OMG, Herr MacGregor once again on his consumer protection crusade. DEATH TO FALSE
METALLIVE ALBUMS !!! Currently, most people don’t even give a damn whether the concerts they go to are backing track-, lip-synch- and auto-tune-free. People want an experience, a community feeling, some nice iPhone motives, an exciting light show & choreography plus a music sound “just like on Spotify”, albeit more amplified.Who’s there to protect?
December 6th, 2025 at 20:56And there lies the problem Uwe. Mass consumption by the masses. It is in so many consumer products and in many situations the manufacturers do not want the consumer to be aware of what is actually in the product they are purchasing, a good example is food. But I am not going there, we are talking about music. I use to own as a youngster (gullible and naive) the Kiss Alive album and I enjoyed a lot of it at that time. Being in mid teenager years we can easily get into something without much thought about other aspects to it. Anyway, decades later we hear about the over dubbing and re recording in the studio and then we roll our eyes. I suppose the first time I actually thought about the ‘in the studio touching things up’ scene was because of good ole Deep Purple and Made in Japan. The comments that it was a genuine live recording, not touched up in any way, just mixed. That would have raised a thought or two about live albums no doubt. It didn’t stop me buying a few here and there. It makes me wonder about the live concerts on film I have, have they been touched up in some way, a bit here and there, depending the situation. I still watch them occasionally though, but it has me thinking at times, how much of this concert is genuine? It sounds so good and they are nailing it big time. I do wish I didn’t have to think that about my favourite artists. I have to give them the benefit of doubt though. Consumption of goods whether good or bad, that is what it is all about for the manufacturers or the seller. A sad predicament in many cases. Truth will out as that old saying goes. Many people don’t give a toss about the truth though and doesn’t that suit so many in higher places. Cheers.
December 7th, 2025 at 01:34Karin #8: Good point about the actors. One who deserves respect is Sean Connery, the original James Bond. When he returned to the James Bond franchise, (in the 90’s??) since he was older, and by then was bald, he wanted to be cast as an older, bald Bond. The producers said no, and insisted on making him up to look a few decades younger than he was by then.
December 7th, 2025 at 04:05Thanks for the chap at Wings of Pegasus doing the vocal analysis videos, brilliant they are. So good to hear about all the fakery and rip off con artists. Ouch! He gets stuck into you know who, the one that was called a ‘global phenomenon’ a while back. Even some of her fans asked him to do an analysis, maybe they are beginning to see the light. Of much more importance is the video of Roger Daltrey and the thumbs up for 80 year old genuine rock vocalists. As we already knew, no autotune, not pitch correction and of course no lies with lip syncing. Still singing The Who songs in the original key. That video was in response to a 76 year old singer lip syncing and people saying that it was fine to do that because of his age. It is a wonder how or why some people still think that is worth paying for, but alas they still do that. So there is a rock ‘ n roll vocalist deity then, looking after genuine singers, hooray! That guy at Wings of Pegasus is saying it as it is, good on him. No pretentious reaction crap, just laying it down the line. Thanks again. Cheers. The Daltrey vocal analysis video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSNONnUQvCw
December 7th, 2025 at 09:52Just to add some nuance to the “all live albums except MiJ are fake” narrative; when someone involved talks about “fixing” a love album, it can be re-recording, editing and a million other things regarding something small. It doesn’t necessarily mean the entire album is fake.
You have to remember that when recording a live album, there is a huge challenge in the fact that all microphones have a lot more bleed in them then what you have in a controlled environment of a studio. This has gotten better as technology improves and today this is of course easier.
If someone had decided in 1972 that Jon’s reverb malfunction in CiT needed to be removed, it wouldn’t have been possible due to the fact that that explosion is probably in each and every mic on stage.
December 7th, 2025 at 11:16@21
Frater Amorifer, you’re certainly right re Sean Connery!
Producers may mean well, but often – because their main focus is to make money – they mistreat the actors/singers.
Only with someone so strong minded as Ian, any producer might lose I guess (hope 😊)
December 7th, 2025 at 12:49Svante is right, correcting a glaring error or mishap is ok to save an otherwise very good or atmospheric recording for commercial use. That has happened more often than not (though the technical means to do it are these days much more advanced) and doesn’t render a live album fake in my eyes or ears. Re-recording whole songs or complete lead vocals (I understand that multi-harmony backing vocals can be touchy live, not only the Eagles touched up their lavish harmonies already on their 70s live recordings – with Mk II backing vocals were of course never an issue … 😂) is another matter.
December 7th, 2025 at 16:09@17 MacGregor, again I’m generally with you but I’m not that radical. I prefer BS free things but I can put up with a bit of BS if necessary. And since music is an art, I believe that there’s very little art without BS. Art has a very special relationship with the objective reality. It never photocopies the reality but rather skews it one way or another. Sometimes fixing one’s live solo in the studio is a misdemeanor rather than a crime. Ritchie did that with his solo on Difficult to Cure from Final Vynil and I still enjoy it, knowing that the rest of the album is mostly genuine.
It’s like female beauty. When my woman enhances her looks surgically just a little, I am fine with that. But if she shows up one day with duck lips taking up half of her face, I might have a different opinion.
December 7th, 2025 at 16:25The Down To Earth gig at The Capitol Theater in Passaic, NJ was nothing short of joyous. And Cozy’s solo was, well, BRILLIANT!
December 7th, 2025 at 19:44@26: What part of the DTC solo? The intro or the bit in the middle. And what is your source on this?
December 7th, 2025 at 22:59I think it was the bit in the middle, Svante. Final Vinyl was a dodgy barrel scraping release and almost all the live tracks were doctored. That it‘s not the original solo from that night has been known since the 80s.
December 8th, 2025 at 03:04@5 – MacGregor, as you mention James Dewar only re-recorded the vocals on “Robin Trower Live” due to a flaw in the original recording – i.e., the vocal track wasn’t usable .
Supposedly when doing the re-recording he treated it as if it were a live set, singing all the songs on the tape without stopping.
From the many other live recordings the band made during his tenure, there can be no doubt that he was indeed a very strong singer.
What a tragedy that he was incapacitated at a young age.
December 8th, 2025 at 03:05@29: Ok, I hear you but I don’t believe that. What’s the point of scraping the barrel to make a quick buck and go through the ordeal of “doctoring” stuff. And it’s spanning so many years. Are you saying all the tracks were tampered with before they went into the vault, waiting to maybe be released in some form in the future?
Also, define “doctored”.
December 8th, 2025 at 07:53@28 The source is Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finyl_Vinyl
It reads: “The instrumental “Difficult to Cure” is taken from the final Japanese Rainbow date in 1984 and features a full orchestral accompaniment. The guitar solo was re-recorded and differs from the video release.”
Wiki may be tricky at times, but in this case I see no reason to mistrust it.
Which solo was re-recorded, I am not sure. I think it is the intro. It sounds really good and, given that Blackers was often drunk and sloppy on stage in the ’80s, might be a studio product.
December 8th, 2025 at 08:38The guitar solos of the Dio Rainbow tracks from the Omni gig are not what you hear on bootlegs from that night, Blackmore overdubbed them, most glaringly on MOTSM.
I thought Finyl Vinyl was a lovelessly compiled cash-in with the track sequence making no sense at all.
“Doctored” is to me after-gig additions that exceed simple small scale repair work for short mistakes/mishaps, you can also overdub a snare if the microphone dropped out during one song. Re-recording complete solos like Ritchie and Michael Schenker did because the live one wasn’t good enough did is something else as is Halford, Lynott and Dewar re-singing their complete vocal lines in the studio “in a live atmosphere” as it is often euphemistically described. Singing in a studio isn’t singing in a hall while putting on a show or playing an instrument at the same time. And when Glenn Frey sang his backing vocals on the East Coast while Don Henley sang his on the West Coast to patch up the Eagles’ 1980 “Live” album, I find the assumption that this was a document of a true performance somewhat stretched too:
Eagles Live was mixed by Glenn Frey and Don Henley on opposite coasts in Los Angeles and Miami, respectively, and as producer Bill Szymczyk put it, the record’s harmony and instrument fixes were made “courtesy of Federal Express.” The 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide said it is “perhaps the most heavily overdubbed [live album] in history.”
(From Wikipedia)
And let’s not even talk of ”live” albums that were 100% recorded in a controlled environment with fake applause and song announcements added.
December 8th, 2025 at 09:34It was a long time ago but I seem to remember listening to all the three nights they did in Japan at that time and the video version and Finyl Version is from separate nights, not overdubbed.
I may be wrong, I can accept that. But it annoys me when people are so sure about something they don’t have any source to back up. The only source I can find about this overdubbed solo is that Wiki page and a personal blog. None of them cite a credible source.
December 8th, 2025 at 13:26I have in contrast never heard the “it’s from different nights”-theory, Svante, but it could well be true. Not that I care, I never liked DTC either way, it was a vanity exercise for Ritchie and massacred Beethoven’s composition in my ears. Whenever Blackers does classical tunes (Beethoven, Tschaikowski, Grieg), the outcome is laughably banal, Ritchie doesn’t have Jon’s feel for classical music. There I said it, now lynch me you Blackmorista hordes! 😎
IIRC, it was Simon Robinson who first made mention of the diverging solos in the 80s. (I’d have to lie if I said that I have listened to Finyl Vinyl more than a few times. My “go to”-Rainbow albums tend to be the debut, LLRnR and DTE.)
Anyway, if there is one guitarist on earth who does not need to redo his live solos in the aftermath then it is Blackers – the fact that he has done so in a few select cases (wasn’t Dead or Alive on Nobody’s Perfect another one?) says nothing about his improvisational abilities, only about how friggin’ difficult and self-critical he can be.
December 8th, 2025 at 15:40I have never listened to Final Vinyl to this day, so much for me being a Blackmorista (whore)! Sorry, I thought that was what Uwe called some of us, that should be horde! I would have read a review or two no doubt and just veered away, as I do with other artists at times. Plus looking at the set list can do that too, remember the appalling live DP album from the HOBL tour, what ever it is called. To this very day I don’t watch or listen to so many songs from many of my favourites rockers. How much can one man take in this life? Cheers
December 8th, 2025 at 20:26Difficult to Cure banal? You bet. I’m pleased to read that here, Uwe, I always felt the same – even when I bought Fynyl Vynyl when it came out. I had hoped it would make me proud (‘See, what did I tell ya, Ritchie’s a genius!’) but I felt that Beethoven rerun cheap. And the orchestra adds mainly pomp.
Nobody’s Perfect on the other hand – I guess that’s the one you’re speaking of MacGregor – I have listened to many times with great pleasure. Mainly the ‘new’ tracks, Dead or Alive, Bad Attitude, KAYBD… and those versions of Highway Star and SKOW are really powerful and fun to these ears. Funny enough I just had it playing in the car a couple of days ago.
December 8th, 2025 at 21:16I don’t think Beth-Ami Heavenstone is actually really playing bass live. The guys in Alcatrazz were very clear about this: not even in the studio she is playing. It’s a pre recorded track, like the vocals and (of course) the massive backing vocals they have on stage which are impossible to replicate like that. This means that just the guitarist and drummer are actually playing live. This being said, I enjoyed Graham last few releases, for what they are.
December 8th, 2025 at 21:30For our doubting Svante
https://images.welt.de/67da65987de6aa748384bc27/315d040967f59ea91f03978f60d8d6e1/ci23x11-w1200/caravaggio-der-unglaeubige-thomas
(Note: Heathenish paganism and heresy are never far away with these Scandinavian tribes where true faith was never sufficiently imbued by early Christianization …):
MOTSM “undoctored” @24:56 (from the gig at The Omni, Atlanta, Georgia, 1978, Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert radio show):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBx_r8cARDo
And after “beauty surgery” for Finyl Vinyl @01:46:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGrS3K98kcQ
The studio solo is nicely terse, but I personally prefer how he played it that night, even with that one prominent bum note. Wilder & more exciting.
The solo ist btw not the only thing that is different in the two versions.
December 9th, 2025 at 02:53COPIOUSLY CONTENTIOUS CONTENT !!! TEN MOST OVERRATED DRUMMERS !!!
I digress just a little for my Tasmanian friend, since we’re discussing Rainbow too: Here is a fellow drummer who rates Little Ian, Bill Ward (“great leftfield ideas to Sabbath’s music“) and Simon Kirke (“ten times the groove of Bonham“) all above Cozy (“whom I loved when I was like twelve years old, I thought he was the reatest drummer ever …“) and Bonzo. And even gives reasons for it (which can be contested of course, but some of his observations are spot on):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9MvurAE0bI
I just leave this here and make a run for it. 😂
PS: The suitably incendiary list of overratees is:
01. Neil Peart 🧐 “everything written out and played exactly the same night for night”
02. John Bonham 😱😱😱 “great sound, but not the greatest chops”
03. Keith Moon 🥸 “he splashes his way through, he’s completely random”
04. Ginger Baker 😠”overrated by himself, overplays the swing thing”
05. Charlie Watts 😑 “you don’t have to work at his feel because it’s so bloody obvious”
06: Dave Grohl 😂 “not even the best drummer in his own band”
07. Chad Smith 😂 “greatest FUNK drummer ever?
08. Carl Palmer 🤖 “when you listen to ELP there is something lacking in the rhythm section””
09. Cozy Powell 😇 “he’s got like three beats and three fills – and he plays them ALL the time”
10. Danny Carey 🤖 “lackluster, a bit lacking in feel perhaps, anal-retentive?“
December 9th, 2025 at 04:52@ 30- yes indeed Skippy, a tragedy what happened to James Dewar. Such a smooth performer, that voice and his bass playing too. Irreplaceable he was in Robin Trower’s band. This Winterland concert is pretty good, well the sound is ok all things considered.. Plenty of songs from the golden era of 1975. Cheers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTyAXk_LyCY&list=RDnpTd88r51LY&index=3
December 9th, 2025 at 05:09@38: No, no, no… I saw Graham Bonett less than a year ago in a very small club, the kind where you can shine the musican’s boots, if you have that kind of fetish. I have three arguments against anything being prerecorded at a Bonnet gig:
1. The vocals and bass playing isn’t perfect. I admit it would be a nice trick to have backing tracks less than stellar to hide what you are doing but I think most people who use backing tracks use good ones. Maybe even often old stuff from album multitracks.
2. It’s very hard to hide backing tracks when you play at a club like this where, if you stand at the stage lip, you can hear stuff directly from the stage.
3. I challenge you to introduce backing tracks to a 70-something year old rock artist who is used to do everything live, bad nights or good. It will be very hard for them to adapt to that. Yes, Eagles apparently use backing tracks but they are from a completely different culture than Graham. Both being American and AOR.
And as for the old argument that it is so “cheap” and “easy” these days that “anyone” can do it, think again. Sure, it is easier that it was 1985 but it’s still a lot of money and work and people involved in creating the tracks, making sure there is a backup or three running and so on. You don’t just stick a laptop by the drummer and let him press play at the right moment. The same goes for pitch correction. To do that live and direct and make it sound as good as it will fool anyone, it’s both expensive and complicated. Pitch correction in the studio is easy.
December 9th, 2025 at 14:14FDR, Beth-Ami always jokes herself about her limited bass skills and that she is nowhere as good as bassists who have played with Graham in the past, citing Roger Glover as one of her heroes and Chris Glen as hard for her to replicate “because he has this hereditary trait giving him unnaturally long spider fingers and an impossible reach on the fret board, I have really small hands”.
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/licensed-image?q=tbn:ANd9GcQgKqSB_hq_bM2NpEbBszWy1MeV0tReRis2Zek9NZZhIpeOc3oOrvz2w-zjOj7_pE56xCYvJkUuNNCX1Ek
I’ve seen her play live with her significant other, a nice way of putting it is that she plays bass a little hesitantly and overtly careful, like someone who hasn’t been at the instrument for a long time (she’s been playing bass for decades, but not always regularly). She doesn’t confidently push or drag the beat with her playing (her and Glenn Hughes are at the opposite ends of the scale as regards “steering” a beat), but fills in the absolute bare minimum, her bass playing is a bit ‘drawing by numbers’. But it is live (at the gigs I saw, I was standing right in front of her and I can tell whether someone plays or fakes bass), just not very confident bass playing. This has nothing to do with that women can’t play (of course they can), but Beth-Ami – who I very much like as a charming person and in her role for Graham – is no Suzi Quatro as regards laying down a groove.
https://youtu.be/3bRb5WDIOoc
In the interview that I linked @3 she mentions that the “new Alcatrazz” sans Bonnet have released a semi-official live album still featuring Bonnet (recorded in Japan) where her bass parts have been overdubbed by Gary Shea because she threw too many shapes during the performance (jumping on the drum riser etc) and it impacted on her playing. That is perhaps how the rumor that she never plays came about, but let me assure you what you hear from her at a Bonnet live gig is just too timid to be prerecorded (to her defense: she doesn’t play a wrong note, she’s just totally swagger-less in her playing).
That said, I don’t rule out that for this new Alcatrazz live release she might have patched up some of her bass parts in the studio or even have the lead guitarist doubling as the producer do it because that was more convenient. KISS albums are awash with tracks where Paul Stanley has played bass and not Gene Simmons (and not because Gene can’t play – he can -, but because he couldn’t be bothered and doesn’t care who plays what on a record as long as it sounds right and he earns good money from it 😂).
*****************************
I hear you Svante, but I think you’re – with the best intentions and loyalties – overoptimistic as regards the alleged disdain of our 70 heroes for prerecorded embellishments and augmentations live. ZZ Top have been using extra rhythm guitar tracks and addition electronic beats and bass sounds live for a long time, but by now they don’t even sing everything live anymore:
https://youtu.be/hF7BOcg29dI
I accept that this might be “an American disease” more than an English one. Not because American musicians are worse (they’re not) or natural born cheaters, but because it is part of US cultural mentality to aim for perfection in presentation. But vintage bands like ZZ Top, KISS, Journey and Motley Crüe have worked with extensive prerecorded audio files for a long time.
And call me a cynic, but at this point I don’t think any official new live album even by our various 70s heroes goes out without some pitch correction in the vocals – it’s by now part of the unquestioned production process, even David Gilmour’s vocals have been “perfected” on recent live releases of his (though he is and always has been a very accurate singer live). In the Alcatrazz case the rookie producer just got a little carried away I think – too much cherry pie … 😂
Anyway, auto-tune, pitch correction, AI-augmentation of vocals are here to stay now and our ears are slowly getting contaminated with it. In the future, they will not be judged any differently than putting reverb or delay on a voice or double- and triple-tracking it (something both Ozzy and IG did extensively in the 70s to create their trademark vocal sounds in the studio).
December 9th, 2025 at 17:53@ 40- what is your point there Uwe, (no I don’t watch other people mouthing off or waffling on about their favourites of dislikes, too false a narrative for tv am presentation). It would be someone expressing his opinion no doubt, looking for attention perhaps. So what, the next person will express theirs too and will be totally different more than likely and so on and so on. Next. We like what we like, we don’t like what we don’t like. It isn’t a competition. Cheers.
December 9th, 2025 at 20:53This is what I mean, it’s become a friggin’ epidemic … Auto-tuning Macca of all people is a crime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVRrVkNIS90
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHhrccLhSjc
The people who do that mean no ill, they simply aspire to achieve a sound they are already hearing all the time, making a lone voice sound “neat”. Our ears are being corrupted.
December 10th, 2025 at 06:53For those wondering what the hell Uwe is raging on about, this is instructive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxX2u8iggYI&t=28s
(Note: The caption is misleading, he’s using Melodyne to pitch-correct, not the competitor software Auto-Tune.)
You don’t have to be a musician to hear how it robs the singers of their identity.
December 10th, 2025 at 07:21Heh, I had read in the article
> and Graham mentions a studio album also being in the works, with Brice Dickinson making a guest appearance there.
and due to the typo, plus being absent-minded, I recorded it in my brain as “I do not know who this is”
But I found today some more info here :
December 10th, 2025 at 14:49https://www.rockpages.gr/graham-bonnet-bruce-dickinson-duet-revealed/
and the epiphany came… Aaaaha
No point at all, MacGreggie @44, just as usual trying to rile you! Some of his observations are quite on point though, he is a drummer himself. He also stresses that they are all in their way good and noteworthy drummers.
December 10th, 2025 at 15:01Manic @47: good typo catch, thank you.
December 10th, 2025 at 20:17I have a name for them as a duo: The Air Raideous Brothers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erMO3m0oLvs
December 11th, 2025 at 00:42“But I found today some more info here …”
Gospodin/господин Manic, are you fluently Cyrillic?
https://www.marxists.org/subject/art/visual_arts/painting/exhibits/socialist-realism/lenin-village.jpg
December 11th, 2025 at 01:47Whenever I want the tingling sensation from the music to go away, when I need an extra adrenaline rush and some of the toxicity to go away from me. I turn on my stereo ..primarily songs “Eyes of the World” and “Lost in Hollywood”
My favorite Rainbow album …. there are recyclings of “Love’s No Friend” (” Mistreated” 2) Makin’ Love (future Perfest Strangers) faint songs (“All Night Long”.atmospheres like Kiss) but there are songs that have one foot in the heavier sound we used from the Dio era, “Love’s No Friend”, “Danger Zone”, of course… “Eyes of the World”and “Lost in Hollywood”. I was thinking how it would be if Ronnie sang on those songs. But the voice Graham Bonnet’s is in the same league. Rainbow in 1979/80 was like a super group. Don Airey is great, still the best played album of his, real logos for Richie. the best after Jon Lord,.Excellent intro, solo, melodic support, never more keyboards on Rainbow albums in DP ratios. Incredible intro in “Eyes of the World Blackmore shows that he is not only a great guitarist but also the king of melody. It’s a shame that that song is not A1 on the album.. and better keyboardist intro by Tarot Woman ..those who were at the concerts and the song was the opening (I didn’t watch it, but it goes without saying) only for Ritchie to appear on the solo and at the top of the chorus, illuminated by one light while everything was in the dark. Unbelievable.Song
Lost in Holiwood Cozy Powell’s drumming is the best since he was in Rainbow … better than in Kill The King (on Stage variant) the guitar phrase-riff is great. Bonnet fantastic.. Those two songs are in my top 6 Rainbow songs all time … along with Man OTSM, The Temple, Stargazer, Gates
Of course, I should not forget the great contribution of Roger Glover as a co-author, bassist, and producer
December 11th, 2025 at 07:01On this Graham’s live album arranged as the first (Eyes) and last song ( Holiwood) as if they asked me
Well yes there is a Dickinson-Bonnet duet going to be released, Graham and Beth-Ami did confirm it.
December 11th, 2025 at 09:29@40
December 11th, 2025 at 10:56Chad Smith – really the best funk drummer ever.
Carl Palmer – to understand how good he is, one needs to listen to his live Carl Palmer Band recordings where he plays ELP stuff in a heavy power trio style.
Ginger Baker – his famous Cream drum solo is one of the very few drum solos that actually make sense and have logic in them.
@51 Davarich Uwe
> Gospodin/господин Manic, are you fluently Cyrillic?
this is actually greek 😉
And I did wrong copy paste, similar news article but meant to copy English version here, not to test your language skills… Absent-minded anyone?
December 11th, 2025 at 13:30https://www.zastavki.com/pictures/1152×864/2014/Animals___Bears_The_polar_bear_is_very_a_shame_071033_9.jpg
(desperately clutching for straws) But wasn’t Greece almost a part of the Soviet Union once, like between 1946-49? 🤣
I live and learn, danke! 🙏
December 11th, 2025 at 16:39@ 54- Georgivs, I do think two things in regard to that drummer that Uwe referenced, he is trying to be funny or he is another person with an agenda of sorts and of course has his very own opinion. He isn’t correct in the Neil Peart assumption at all. If what Uwe has stated in his comment is what this chap has said on the clip, Neil Peart did not notate his music before hand, well very little of it, he memorised it, he had an incredible memory for his and also Geddy’s and Alex’s music. He is on film saying this. We have gone from not enough swing to having too much swing, work that one out. Ginger Baker say no more. Anyway, just another YouTuber craving attention. The only drummers I have ever listened to talking about other big name drummers are those drummers themselves. Phil Collins, Carl Palmer, Bill Bruford, Ian Paice, Neil Peart, Simon Phillips and the list goes on. I agree re Carl Palmer too, good comment. There is that guy on the tube who demonstrates what some of the big name drummers do while he talks about it, he is worth watching at times, depending on the drummer he is covering. Otherwise I avoid drummers like the plague, they are worse than bass players, he he he. Or perhaps not. Cheers.
December 11th, 2025 at 20:17Neil Peart’s drumming is thoughtful, cerebral and erudite. I don’t think he would have lasted all that long in James Brown’s backing band if you know what I mean. Nor would Carl Palmer. Ian Paice perhaps a little longer.
December 12th, 2025 at 02:53I have the Graham Bonnet new live release now, it’s a pleasant listen if you don’t think too hard about the sources, but then I’m biased in favour of Graham, I think he has an absolutely singular voice in how no other singer can sing as high as him and still sound manly/laddish. Sort of like David Lee Roth, if DLR could hit notes for once instead of hitting the bar or hitting it off with wimmin.
Observations:
– The backing vocals are hilariously overdone throughout – it’s as if he had hired The Beach Boys AND Queen as his own private choir. They are so pristine, squeaky-clean, stacked and layered as well as note-perfect, you can just visualize a keyboarder triggering them. More importantly, they sound at times like Graham was among the backing voices too which is hard to explain unless he’s become two-headed with age which makes for an unsettling picture. 😂
– That said, Since You’ve Been Gone is the song where his vocals have been pitch-corrected the most, possibly because it was deemed as the pre-release, is his signature anthem and is so goddamned hard to sing. The fact that for the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack his voice was heavily treated as well and they perhaps tried to emulate that sound for a younger audience might also explain why they went so overboard with it. On other tracks, however, they left some warts and Bonnet idiosyncrasies.
– With all due respect for your age-related loss of hearing and the fact that you paid for it all, Herr Bonnet: YOUR LEAD VOCALS ARE MIXED WAY TOO LOUD !!! 🤣 We’re not just talking loud, but Tom Jones, Narry Manilow, Neil Diamond mega-über-Schlager-loud. It’s the kind of domineering vocal loudness Edith likes who is always complaining that Ian Gillan is not loud enough on the Purple mixes of all eras
But if you can get over all that, it’s a fine release to play loud in the car if you feel like having a Bonnet bash while speeding a little.
December 12th, 2025 at 05:28@56 Uwe
> But wasn’t Greece almost a part of the Soviet Union once, like between 1946-49? 🤣
I suppose the technically correct answer is “no”, but it was indeed a bit of a complicated situation. In Greece we happily resolve such complexities simply by reversing to “But wasn’t Everything almost a part of Greece once”
December 12th, 2025 at 06:56@57 I see your point. I am also a drummer.) Sort of. Not the best sort, though. Not even close. See, we drummers being the lowest of the low somehow need to compensate for it. So we crack these derogatory remarks aimed at other musicians, including our fellow drummers. Sometimes it may pass for sardonic wit but most of the time people just know we are being jealous.
December 12th, 2025 at 09:13@ 61 -good to hear Georgivs and the most important part we drummers can play is giving bass guitarists a hard time. After all, they are a deplorable bunch of people. I am still trying to work out what their role on planet earth is. Cheers.
December 12th, 2025 at 10:26What do you call a drummer with brain functions?
A windfall profit.
December 13th, 2025 at 15:04I have been sucked into those analysis videos.
A few years ago, Fil from Wings of Pegasus looked at Child in time from 1970.
I it so long go he does not have all the pitch analysis software
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAKfOBRFZTY
tl:dr – he likes it.
December 16th, 2025 at 14:46Fil has an endearingly soft spot for 70s rock though – born in 1983 – he’s really much too young for it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W85NBKc_u9g
Always says nice things about Purple and related. Also a great fan of Bill Nelson and Be-Bop Deluxe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SetD0dJnMcw
He’s a true music lover and even when he catches someone cheating never goes overboard with his criticism. No character assassination.
December 17th, 2025 at 09:23Me thinks Fil @ Wings of Pegasus is holding back big time. After all, he keeps saying that he isn’t there to be taking sides or being bias as such. He has to be careful don’t you think? But behind the scenes, what does he really think of these ‘cheating’ and ‘fraudulent’ antics from certain so called artists. His is editing shots also, as many do of course. However I do sometimes wonder if he is editing bits out where he is ranting and raving, he he he. Surely he couldn’t be any worse than some punters here at THS, could he, ha ha ha! Now there is a thought. We can bottle that thought and keep it for posterity. Cheers.
December 18th, 2025 at 09:44Oh dear, it looks like the cauldron has been increasing in temperature of late with Graham Bonnet and a few others.
https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/graham-bonnet-slams-alcatrazz-over-lip-synching-accusations
December 30th, 2025 at 21:06