Support act was the Jackie Lynton band, quite good with covers of old rock classics such as "Walkin the Dog" and "Messin the Blues".
Rainbow opened with the "Over the Rainbow" music from Wizzard of Oz, but without the "I think we're not in Kansas any more" bit. The set was then as follows (running order approximate):
From the intro tape to the house lights coming back was 2 hours 34 minutes. The backdrop started as the new album cover, changed to a bust of Beethoven for the "Difficult to Cure" solo, and then the classic 1976 logo with the fist holding the Rainbow - this got more cheers than Dougie White. When he (White) went to the front of the stage, no-one held out their hands to greet him, they just tried to see past him to see what Blackmore was doing! He might as well not have been there! He wasn't that good singing his own stuff (voice was weak, and he spent too much time running around), but was really inadequate with the Dio and Gillan material.
Ritchie was really into it, and appeared to enjoy the whole thing, although it looked to me as if he was getting a bit pissed off with all White's running about and fooling around (vocally as well as physically). If anything he appeared to get off more with the older Dio stuff and the Purple stuff than that from the new album.He played really well, and very fluently with plenty of ad libbing solo-wise during riffs and vocal parts, although he was marginally less fluent than on the Battle Rages on Tour, two years back. Also, those ENGL amps he uses don't sound anything like the Marshalls. He spent lots of time with the fans down at his side of the stage - I managed to shake hands with him several times, and I got one of a couple of beers he passed into the crowd.
Surprises? Only one Joe Lynn Turner number, no songs (or even medleys) from "Rising", and _FOUR_ Purple songs, especially "Black Night".
The bassist (Greg Smith) and keysman (Paul Morris) were good enough, if nothing special, and Chuck Burgi on drums was an infinite improvement over John O'Reilly who drums on the CD. The main downfall, however, was White. It'll be interesting to see if he makes it to the next album. Personally, I'd like to see him replaced.
I didn't notice any bootleggers (I was right at the foot of the stage) but hopefully some of the gigs will have been recorded.
Svante Pettersson 27 january 1996
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