Newsgroups: alt.music.deep-purple
Subject: Rainbow - Hammersmith 3rd Nov - report & opinions
From: Garry Smith <garry@caleyjag.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 04 Nov 1995 18:48:21 

It had taken me a long time to decide to go, so we ended up with tickets for the very back row upstairs. So here's a long distance view....

There are two Ritchie Blackmores. One writes, and plays, bashalongaRitchie tunes (like Black Masquerade, Too Late For Tears, etc) which sound very messy live and do nothing for me. The other used to write, and still plays, really good songs - Burn, Perfect Strangers, and Temple of the King, which was *awesome*, the highlight for me. But I *do* like some of the new stuff - Hunting Humans is good, because it's so different from the bashalonga stuff.

In the end, I'm glad I went. After 3 numbers (SKid, TLFT, LLR'n'R), I wasn't too happy. LLR'n'R in particular went on too long, with the crowd singing along, the "Happy Wanderer", and Doogie and RB attempting to improvise around each other. In fact, a few folks started walking out round about then. But after that, I got more into it.

RB was a bit static for the first half - fortunately, Doogie was skipping all over the stage. By the end of the night, we'd decided that Doogie was really good - great voice, clearly enjoying it, and lots of fun. I personally wasn't keen on all his little songs, but that's just me. All the mucking about between songs wastes time, and destroys any atmosphere that has built up. May be it's more fun if you're down at the front?

There's no denying that RB can still play as well as ever. It's clearly *his* band, though, isn't it? Everything revolves around him - he calls the shots - even stands in the centre of the stage much of the time. I'd rather see a band of equals.

At the end of the SOTW encore, RB left his guitar at the front of the stage, feeding back, and they all went off. The outro tape was played, with the guitar still going, but then they came back on for another encore, to find that the guitar had disappeared! (So how come the sound kept going?) Doogie started up a song "Someone's stolen Ritchie's guitar...". RB strapped on another one - and someone was hauled up on stage to return the "stolen" guitar. It all seemed a bit of a sham - exactly how would you smuggle a Strat out? And who was the figure in a monk's cowl who was wandering round the stage?

That's enough for now. In summary, there was much that I didn't like, and quite a bit that I did like. Some of what RB did irritated me - some of it was *really* good. Same old RB that he's always been.

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| Garry Smith          garry@caleyjag.demon.co.uk                    |
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