Rainbow - In Helsinki 30.9.1995

I didn't make any notes, so I can't exactly remember the sequence of songs, but I make benefit of Jukka's and Tapio's reviews. The first song I didn't recognize at all. I thought that maybe it was some JLT-Rainbow-song? Now I'm a bit wiser, that song was called "Spotlight Kid". There was some classical solos in the middle, in one point the keyboard solo sounded like polka!-) The audience did know that song and seemed to like it very much.

The next song was "Too late for tears", another of the two songs that I dislike on the SIUA. Perhaps a bit better than the studio version, but not very impressive.

But then they played "Long Live Rock'n'Roll"! Dougie made the people sing. There was a short bit of "Starstruck", surprisingly many knew lyrics to that one, too. I remember there was the riff of "Black Night" somewhere, too. And then some gillan-ish guitar-vocal interplay from "Strange Kind of Woman". At that point I thought "Oh no. Please leave that alone!" After LLR'n'R finished, they played "Hunting Humans". Very impressive, simple and beautiful guitar solo from Ritchie.

Then Dougie introduced us the "Master of Stratocaster"-something, and they played the familiar Blackmore's Blues. Enjoyable! Then they jumped directly to "Wolf to the Moon". Not bad. "Difficult to Cure" was one of the highlights for me, the band sounded tight. Then the keyboardist (Paul Morris) played some classical piano tune, at least a couple of minutes long piece. It surely was hard to play and sounded very good to me, but didn't get too much applause. Then the keyboard solo evolved into some industrial noise. On the whole, the solo was enjoyable, but the concept was copied from Jon Lord and that disturbed me.

Generally, in the concert the keyboards didn't sound as awful as on the SIUA album (due to bad production) and they were a bit more on the foreground. Paul used Hammond sound on many songs, too.

The next piece was "Still I'm Sad", it couldn't be something very special because I don't recall what I thought about it. Then there was a drum solo. Not bad, but still I think it's much more impressive what Ian Paice can do with his simple drum set!

"Man On the Silver Mountain" was the next song, it was nice to hear but nothing really fine. I expected with anxiety that Dougie does that familiar RJD-interlude (singing "We'll go to the mountain" etc.) One moment it really sounded that they are going to do it, but then I relaxed with a sigh. Gillan-ish screams are property of Ian Gillan, and Dio-isms belong to RJD.

The next song was "Temple of the King", which was a bit slower than the original version. It was more like a heavy ballad, but still it was very beautiful. Again, one of the highlights from my point of view. During the solos, Dougie and the bassist (Greg Smith) sang fine background vocals, AFAIR.

The next piece was "Black Masquerade", a good performance, but the audience didn't become very inspired.

And then Dougie introduced "Ariel". No reaction among the audience. Did I hear something wrong, I thought?-) A fine song. There was a beautiful guitar-keyboard intro in it. Ritchie's solo during the song was intermediate. Ritchie's girlfriend, Candice, was outside the stage (on the right side), singing those background vocals. At first I thought that the vocals come from tape or sampler, but she was there. (And there was some guy with a funny mask, too. I think he couldn't be "Black Masquerade", because he looked amusing.)

The next song was "Stand and Fight", which I can't stand. (So, fight!)

"Perfect Strangers" made people go wild at first. And it wasn't bad. They played a little longer the point with that strange rhythm (how could I explain? That point with some oriental feel on Jon's keyboards on the original version. I hope you understand.) It was nothing like the amazing Perfect Strangers, played by Deep Purple in Helsinki 17. November 1993. But that's an another story...

the next piece, "Hall of the Mountain King" wasn't anything impressive. Then the band left the stage and it was no problem to get them back.

"Burn" was actually quite good, Dougie and Greg were singing by turns just like Coverdale and Hughes. I don't know why, but Greg resembled Glenn Hughes somehow. (Maybe because he sang. No flames please, I'm not Hughes enthusiast and I have only seen California Jam video.) Greg's bass playing wasn't very good, though. Or maybe the sound was bad. Solos were not very succesful in that song, Ritchie shook his head as he didn't get the classical riffs right.

"Smoke on the Water" was introduced with a low-profile intro, in similar vein that in DP's TBRO tour's concerts. The audience was excited, Dougie inspired people to sing-along. As Tapio told, the band left the stage for a while and finished the song then. They seemed to be very happy with the concert and shook hands with people.

Then the familiar, original "Over the Rainbow", with Rainbow logo on the wall back of the stage. I think there was some hope for second encore, but then the lights went on and people started leaving the place.

Feelings? Very enjoyable rock concert, nothing like RJD's Rainbow gigs must have been, and nothing like DP in Helsinki 1993, but still I think the concert was succesful. The audience was very excited at first, but then cooled down a bit (maybe when "Hunting Humans" was played).

The people close to the stage (like me) were enjoying themselves, but those who were further from the stage and on the seats didn't seem to have fun. The age distribution of the audience could be one reason, there were many original Rainbow fans, (Rainbow was one of the most famous bands in Finland in the early 80's) who have nowadays left rock'n'roll, but had got the idea to come see their old favourite.

There were even some people wearing suits (that's OK, but in a rock concert an academic and businesslike behavior can spoil one's interest.) In the middle of the concert, the applause could have been more loud...the concert itself did succeed well, but the anonymity of the band bothers a bit.

Dougie is a good singer, but lacks personality. He's a mixture of Ian Gillan and Joelynne Turner, (he screamed better than JLT, but of course I prefer Ian!) but doesn't reach the power of Ronnie James Dio, which is a big minus when they perform the songs of Rainbow Mk. 1. The background vocals with Greg were succesful, they must have trained that much.

Ritchie was mainly standing still, but sometimes he walked on stage and shook hands with the audience (or did he give a plectrum?) He did look like very happy. The communication between him and Paul Morris was nothing like the telepathia between him and Jon Lord was.

Generally, the band seemed to be very relaxed and happy with the results. I hope they'll continue (that is, I hope Ritchie doesn't start those unbelievable crew changes again.)

I'm sure that Deep Purple's new album will be much more great (and gigs! You guys, you MUST come to Finland next year! Jon, don't you want to play Finlandia again?-) but Ritchie's effort isn't bad either. I think the change has done good for both DP and Ritchie.

And one addition: there were t-shirts with the picture from the SIUA cover for sale. They were actually very cool.

//PPCW 		-	Tomi Korpela	 	- tkorpela@niksula.hut.fi