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Some boys still haven’t washed their hands
A vintage review of a Rainbow gig at the New York’s Beacon Theater. It first appeared in Sounds magazine on July 24, 1976.
Rainbow hit nirvana
Blackmore´s Rainbow
Beacon Theatre, New YorkConcert review by Peter Crescenti
IT MAY be a few months before Blackmore’s Rainbow appears in Britain for the first time, but even if they have to wait until distant `77, Blackmore freaks, when they finally do see the band live, will no doubt decide that the wait, no matter how long, was damned well worth it. Rainbow, now in its second version, is simply one of the most dynamic and energetic heavy rock outfits in the free world.
Ritchie Blackmore is a happy man again, happy because now that he’s left Deep Purple, he’s once again free to make the kind of rock’n’roll he loves best — visceral and explosive, an atomic dose of chordal calamity — and by no coincidence, it’s the same sweaty brand of rock thousands of rockers have become addicted to over the last ten years, hooked, mainly, by fixes served up by the Main Man of heavy metal, Ritchie Blackmore.
Continue reading in My Things – Music history for those who are able to read.
Many thanks to Geir Myklebust for the continuing efforts on digitizing his archives.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Saw Purple twice at The Beacon Theatre, 1996, and 2004, got backstage passes for the 04 show.
August 20th, 2023 at 02:39“Opening with ‘The Temple Of The King’, a blues, and then ‘Sixteenth Century Greensleeves’, Rainbow simply knocked the crowd on their collective tails.”
Yes, I can just imagine that: Ritchie hitting the stage in 1976 with an acoustic guitar and maybe a slight quip: “In thirty years from now I will be doing ONLY this, so get used to it!” And then Ronnie goes “One day in the year of the fox came a time remembered well …”.
However, in real life, I believe Peter Cresecenti only heard Rainbow opening with “Kill The King” as they already did in 1976 before the release of even Rising.
When I saw Rainbow in 1976, they opened with Kill The King too followed by Mistreated – my buddy sitting beside me (the gig was seated) got all unruly and said: “Aren’t they gonna play something from the Rising album?!” (which he loved). They did eventually play a snippet of Lady Starstruck, A Light In the Black and Do You Close Your Eyes (no Strats were harmed in the course of the encore).
August 20th, 2023 at 20:57I was at this show and it was one of the best concerts I ever went to. However, they did not open with Temple of the King and then do Sixteenth Century Greensleeves. They opened with Kill the King and then did Mistreated. I’m not trying to nit pick but that’s the way it was. I don’t know how he could have gotten it so wrong. I’ve seen Rainbow on every tour sometimes twice and this show was the best.
August 21st, 2023 at 20:29I think that most Rainbow/Blackmore aficionados already know that they used to open with Kill the King and not Temple. The reviewer dude just didn’t know the songs. Case closed.
August 22nd, 2023 at 14:00My best Rainbow gig was the televised one in Munich October 1977 – that was an epic night and Ritchie was coiffured for the occasion – his widow’s peak (so prominent on the 1976 tour) had been – voilà! – replaced by fetchingly youthful bangs (for our British readers: = fringe), a wonder of regenerative natural growth if I’ve ever seen one. Blackmore, the old lizard, he had it in him.
I had begun bass playing only a few months before, Bob Daisley’s commanding execution of his bass lines impressed me no end and he looked very rock star (I was all the way upfront). Jimmy Bain had always been more of a street urchin, but Daisley was imposing and extremely cool.
August 22nd, 2023 at 14:14The first few Rainbow concerts in 1975 had this setlist:
August 22nd, 2023 at 16:05Do You Close Your Eyes
Self Portrait
Sixteenth Century Greensleeves
Catch the Rainbow
Man on the Silver Mountain
Keyboard Solo
Stargazer
A Light in the Black
Still I’m Sad
If You Don’t Like Rock ‘n’ Roll
They never played Temple of the King in the 70ies or 80ies, period, only with the Doogie line-up in the nineties in a suitably electrified version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S981zrMBUBo
and – I believe to remember – with Zombie Rainbow in the last decade.
BN have done the number too of course.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24otjsmv760
(To the eternal defense of Frau Blackmore, the pitching issues you sometimes hear do not stem from her, but from the guy who did the recording!)
I always thought it was a remarkable song, but in the Dio line-up Ritchie lacked the guts to drag out an acoustic and do a ballad (other than the largely improvisational Catch The Rainbow) only to in the end fire most of the band in an effort to become more AOR – go figure! Temple Of The King could have even been a successful single, it could have been Dio-Rainbow’s Dust In The Wind (Kansas). The Scorpions too have amply shown that acoustic ballads don’t hurt you as a hard rock act (and get you airplay). My countrymen also took a liking to Temple of the King btw …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmo0epzZxvM
(Forgive Klaus heeze äkzent – he tries hart, jawohl!)
August 22nd, 2023 at 16:09Related, excellent read here,
https://www.metalexpressradio.com/2020/09/16/david-stone-rainbow-we-could-have-had-a-whole-album-like-gates-of-babylon-it-would-have-been-groundbreaking/ ,
David really spices things up, want some (sure to be) controversial tasters?!
“… with Blackmore all he’d do is turn his amps up full, turn his guitar up full and play lead guitar for an hour and a half. It got really, really boring. It was blaringly loud and had virtually no dynamics at all except for a quiet part here and there, but it was very repetitive.”
***
“… we weren’t a huge commercial success, but live we were one of the best bands on tour in those years. We were a hot band. Although I found it loud, boring and repetitive, when it came down to straight Rock ‘n’ Roll, we were damn good at it. I’ve heard bootlegs, especially one from Atlanta and man, we were good that night. We were a great live band and that’s what Ritchie wanted, a band where every member was really good. I don’t think he knew what to do with it but at least he put it together.”
***
“I don’t think the first album was very good. It sounded like a demo to me and there’s no real thought put into it to make it standout, to make it spectacular. It just sounded like a bunch of songs and a band jamming them in the studio. There’s no direction or cohesion. If you put on one of those albums by Yes or Genesis it was like, here we go….boom!!
Tony Carey was a very good keyboard player (on Rising) and his keyboards are interwoven right through there but I didn’t think it was a great album. It didn’t do anything saleswise and got no airplay. I suppose we got some airplay with Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll so at least that got a bit more traction.”
***
“Many people say “Gates Of Babylon” is the best track on the album. Had he wanted to work with me more, we could have done more like that. You can tell how every member of the band was involved by the way the parts weaved together. We could have had that over the whole album. I was so pleased to have the opportunity to build that song with Martin Birch and Cozy. Ritchie left us alone. I think he knew we were onto something. We built the whole thing up, did the overdubs and added strings. That’s the shame of it. We could have had a whole album of that. It would have been ground breaking. Even Tony Banks of Genesis told me that it was his favourite track and liked what I was doing. I almost burst into tears to hear him say how much he liked that track. That meant the world to me. I loved Genesis and I loved Tony’s playing. He doesn’t try to show off, he plays music.”
***
“Even before then I lost a fair amount of respect for that guy (Blackmore). He was one of those people in the Rock ‘n’ Roll business that had this attitude that there were people at his level and everyone else was below him. That kind of attitude rubbed me the wrong way right from the word go. Maybe it has something to do with me being Canadian. To me we’re all in the same lifeboat together and all rowing at the same time but with him it was more of a hierarchy type of thing. Even with Ronnie, I saw him bully, for the lack of a better word, bully Ronnie and I thought “You’re a fool Blackmore”. Ronnie was the greatest singer I’d ever heard and why would anyone ever, want to alienate Ronnie? By the time Ronnie left, he couldn’t wait to get out. He was so sick of it. I know of other people made writing contributions too but got no credit. Blackmore was a pretty cheap guy. He didn’t pay us very well. I know Bob Daisley is very upset with him. I’m not quite as upset with him and don’t see the point in carrying a grudge. He looked down his noses at us. It’s self-defeating. If he’d been more amicable, he’d have got more out of us.”
***
“Cozy was great. He befriended me and I think he felt sorry for me. I was just a kid and he looked after me and gave me hints to handle the pressure. He’d give me the wink on stage to say “Nice solo Dave, good job”. He just encouraged me and made me feel at home. Same with Ronnie and Wendy, they’d ask me to travel with them. They were like my Aunt and Uncle. They’d done it a hundred times and this was my first time. They were like a family and made me feel that I was people that cared about me.”
***
“… when I got the job with Blackmore I thought, man you guys are like a throwback, like it was Deep Purple again but not as Progressive. Deep Purple were always progressing and I loved Glenn Hughes.
Talking of Glenn Hughes, I remember once asking Blackmore why he didn’t want to keep working with Glenn Hughes and he hit the roof. He was really upset. He’s not a big fan of people who do drugs and I think back then his cocaine use was out of control so Blackmore was extremely upset that I even mentioned his name.”
***
“Blackmore was very hard on people. The way he fired Bob was awful. He didn’t even talk to him. We just got off the American tour and he was going home to his family and they told him not to come back. Ritchie never even spoke to him to his face; he just got a call from the management.”
***
“I wish I’d had the chance to work with Roger Glover. He did a great job on The Butterfly Ball which Ronnie sang on. It was a great production. The albums that Blackmore did when I left were much better than Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll because of Roger Glover. They were more coherent songs and more keyboards. It was easier to listen to and got more airplay I was happy for Cozy as they got more success after I’d left but I do wish that I’d worked with Roger.”
***
August 22nd, 2023 at 16:36“(Blackmore) was an oddball that guy. I don’t really have anything horrible to say about him. We weren’t friends and just worked together basically. On one of those rare occasions where we were chatting, which was extremely rare and that must have happened about a dozen times, and I said to him that he was very good with a pick. He gave me this evil look and said “It’s not a pick, it’s a plectrum” in a very stern voice. So, I thought, OK, Mr Blackmore, it’s a plectrum, thank you Sir. Whatever he was like as a person he was a damned good guitar player and could do things that other players could not. He didn’t have much respect for other guitar players though and he thought Jimmy Page was trash. He said “That guy can’t play guitar…….but he’s very clever”. That’s what he said, word for word. I love Jimmy Page’s guitar playing. So, we didn’t see eye to eye on that. One guitar player that he admired was Albert Lee and he was a big fan of his.”
Very interesting, Nutking, vielen lieben Dank for that early set list. No Mistreated yet (never a song Rainbow did well because Ronnie couldn’t replicate DC’s hurt vanity machismo – if RJD had been dumped by his girlfriend, he wouldn’t have been the type to do a male hurt pride lion roar like that). Never knew they performed “If You Don’t Like Rock’n’Roll”, the only song on the debut to feature a keyboard/piano solo (Rolling Stone called it “some piano tinkling on one song”).
Hell, Blackmore is weird as shit, there he goes (i) pressing an obscure outside number like “Black Sheep Of The Family” on his Purple band mates, (ii) encounters push-back and (iii) throws toys out of the pram, (iv) hijacks opening act to record the song and (v) proceeds to jump ship – AND THEN NEVER EVER PLAYS THE DARN THING LIVE EVEN ONCE WITH RAINBOW! Go figure.
Self Portrait is a 6/8 rhythm, something Rainbow only did once and Purple – under the tenure of Ritchie – never. Interesting, evocative number.
August 22nd, 2023 at 18:31Montreal – 1975.11.10 – The only show where If You Don’t Like Rock ‘N’ Roll was played.
August 23rd, 2023 at 13:53@9…
“Pictures of home” from MH is in 6/8 rhythm.
Peace !
August 23rd, 2023 at 22:57The Most Honorable Gregster in all his indefatigable mercurial splendor of lucidity @11:
To quote Ian Gillan: Are you sure?
https://youtu.be/w3bg9RqsZ5w?si=55MOmHPTs-quW0u6
PoH is played in fast triplets, yes, by Purple, but it’s to my ears essentially a shuffle with a 4/4 beat.
https://youtu.be/4uqPnQmLJ2Y?si=5P0X9LisVhdNlK9W
(And I swear Paul Gilbert had ADHD as a child, still does! 😂 )
SP otoh is a purebred 6/8 though some people would probably also describe it as a 3/4 meter.
https://youtu.be/ahqS3Fa0UpM?si=nAhcnuEAZvQxSC3A
August 24th, 2023 at 12:57@ 10
August 24th, 2023 at 20:59If You Don’t Like Rock and Roll was also played November 12th 1975 two nights after the Montreal show at the Beacon Theatre in New York. That was the 2nd show Rainbow ever did. I know this for a fact because I was there. I’ll never forget Ronnie saying to the crowd “If you don’t like rock and roll then what the fuck are you doing here” That song was the encore. I don’t know if it was ever played again but it was that night.
@12…
Uwe asked qt.”The Most Honorable Gregster in all his indefatigable mercurial splendor of lucidity @11:
To quote Ian Gillan: Are you sure” ?….( re – 6/8 time-meter for Pictures of home ).
Oh yes, absolutely…All you have to do for confirmation, is simply count the notes out of the melody-line introduction, & there you’ll find the 6/8 time, as the notes are played per-beat.
And you are correct that 6/8 overlaps with 2/4 ( or 12/8 with 4/4 ) when you treat each group of triplets first beat as 1 beat, so you have an over-lap per-se.( It all depends on what time value you decide to place on a crotchet, or a quaver when using notation ).
The trick with Pictures of home, is to count the melody line-out.( 1-2-3, 4-5-6 )..
*And from looking at the above, in the jazz-world, you can play 3/4 over 4/4 by using 6/8, & playing accents on beats 1-3-5…
Peace !
August 25th, 2023 at 00:21That Gillan song Are You Sure, here is Bernie Torme showing how he played it on an old & worn out Stratocaster. Sheesh I thought Rory Gallagher’s Strat looked road weary. Cheers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g1cZVdfr4Y&t=165s
August 26th, 2023 at 01:53Honorable Gregster, I have erred! You were, are and always will be right, 6/8 it is. What was I thinking (not much, obviously)/hearing?! Forgive me. I f you weren’t already living Down Under, I’d writhe underneath you.
I always thought PoH a remarkable song. Figures that Ritchie first fought to have it included on MH (apparently there was some initial pushback from even Jon which is strange given how Jon would decades later feature the song at his solo gigs) and then unceremoniously refused to play it on the following tour(s). It wasn’t dusted off until he had left in 1993.
August 26th, 2023 at 12:31@16…You’re fine most honourable Sir…It can be difficult at times to differentiate “meters” when there’s a lot of syncopation about with the music.
I’ll have to listen to the early SM recordings once more, but SM played a straight 6/4 riff for an awesome tune on either Perpendicular or Abandon, where there are no triplets involved, but the phrase / riff is over 6-beats…( I am terrible with song names sorry, especially since the digital-age took a-hold of everything )…
Anyhow, it’s this kind of musical “trickery” that keeps the band in shape, & our ears interested in the music. Great stuff !
Peace !
August 27th, 2023 at 09:41You mean Seventh Heaven, Herr Gregster?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xDaaoiJjRc&list=PLbdZWxdjTCPpaTV75SjrE7bI9Ssv9fPDY&index=4
Steve brought during his tenure with ze Pürps a myriad of unorthodox meters with him and he was just great at incorporating them without hitting you on the head with his musical knowledge.
And not just with Purple, Kayla by Flying Colors is an effing brilliant piece of complex music and catchy as hell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0wZ1jLi6PU
Now that he has the time, I wish Steve would get back together with the guys from Flying Colors, that was one of the most interesting and rewarding Prog projects ever. And Steve could really shine there. The gig I witnessed in Cologne in Dec 2019 was amazing and a Holy Communion of sophisticated music played with heart and soul.
August 27th, 2023 at 16:52@18…Ja, das is der song herr Uwe !!!
Well guessed…And the name Seventh Heaven combined with the riff, can confuse even more lol.( eg is that 6 or 7 that’s counted, as the last note is held first time around )?… The riff is in 6/4, followed by 8/4 for the sung verse…
Quite often it’s better / easier to just play the riff of the song if you can, than to try & map / chart the whole thing in your head, that’s for sure. And what a great tune it is…The whole album is par-excellence as Jon would say.
Peace !
August 28th, 2023 at 13:05Teaching Aussies Deutsch, what greater reward in life can there reasonably be I cry?! My work is done here.
Abandon was darker than Purpendicular, maybe that is why people didn’t grow as attached to it – it’s an excellent album. Seventh Heaven and Fingers To The Bone are my favorite tracks on it.
The riff of Love Child is a very elegant 7/4 you hardly notice unless you start counting it out. Tommy admitted to receiving some inspiration for it from an old Joe Walsh riff he had to learn while he was with the James Gang. Speaking of the latter, I always thought of Bang, their first and most inspired album with Tommy, as sort of a companion album to Come Taste The Band. It’s hard to imagine someone liking one of these two albums, but not the other. They share the same fresh and infectious exuberance.
August 29th, 2023 at 13:27Guess the Joe Walsh tune which inspired Love Child is Funk #49
August 29th, 2023 at 16:17“Abandon was darker than Purpendicular, maybe that is why people didn’t grow as attached to it – it’s an excellent album”. To my ears it is a boring album, but that can happen with any artist following a decent debut album. The songs just don’t stack up. Joe Walsh & the James Gang, now there are a few beauties amongst those few albums. I never did give The James Gang a listen after Walsh’s exit let alone with Bolin’s stint in the band. Maybe I should but without Walsh who has a knack for rather good songwriting at times, I tread cautiously. Cheers.
August 29th, 2023 at 22:03Is it? I never really dug deeper, Tommy certainly played that number while with the Gang and Joe Walsh is always good for a quirky riff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm0HvAEV0EM
August 29th, 2023 at 22:19I did listen to The James Gang ‘Bang’ album with Tommy Bolin. Not too bad in places. There are two acoustic based songs I liked, one with Bolin singing ‘Alexis’. Written by Bolin & Jeff Cook, more than likely the same guy who Coverdale co wrote Love Child with wasn’t it? The final track ‘Mystery’ is also rather good. The rock style songs, so so. All very good musicians. I did also watch the Don Kirshner 20 minute concert online, it looked like that clip Uwe sent is from that. Not sure about the lead vocalist, he is a good singer but something is missing I feel. Funk ’49 & that idiosyncratic Joe Walsh rhythm, no one plays it like he did & still does. The joy of an original artist nailing it indeed. Cheers.
August 30th, 2023 at 05:50Yo,
Every album with Steve Morse playing on it is 1st-class, cutting-edge, pushing the DP musical envelope, & engaging for the listener, if one has the time to sit down, & listen through, from start to finish, at proper volume levels to appreciated the mastery & work brought forward.
That said, every band member always performs at their best, & each contributes exactly what is required, in addition to the little-bit-of excess that’s needed to warrant any DP recording.
Rock on DP !!!
Peace !
August 30th, 2023 at 11:38Yo,
Other stand-out trax with the funny meters are “Jack Ruby” with that straight 6/4, & the title tune “Bananas” in 7/8…
No doubt there’s more of them too.
Peace !
August 31st, 2023 at 22:35Uwe,
“Hell, Blackmore is weird as shit, there he goes (i) pressing an obscure outside number like “Black Sheep Of The Family” on his Purple band mates, (ii) encounters push-back and (iii) throws toys out of the pram, (iv) hijacks opening act to record the song and (v) proceeds to jump ship – AND THEN NEVER EVER PLAYS THE DARN THING LIVE EVEN ONCE WITH RAINBOW! Go figure.”
I’m not getting clear on your bottom line: you nailed it! I have to print and frame your words! Crazy music history crystallized in one paragraph!
September 6th, 2023 at 23:58