It's not in the highst spirits that I write this review of Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow's first concert in 12 years. Let it be said right away that it clearly wasn't one of Ritchie's best nights. Quite why is hard to guess, though it didn't seem to be first-night nervousness.
Introtapes:
Encores :
Outrotape:
Already on entering the venue, The Kulttuuritalo (The culture House), we recognized the set-up of the drums as once used by Chuck B=FCrgi, and it was soon confirmed that he indeed had replaced John Reilly who played on the album. I was quite pleased by this as I think he was the weakest performer on the album, plodding along rather uninspiredly to some of those nicely worked out riffs.
The Culture House houses the venue which has been specifically buildt for classical music (so I'm told) and that should ensure superior acoustic conditions, but it was quite clear from the start that we weren't getting our money's worth of top-notch soundengineering work tonight...
Following on from that old familiar introtape we're kicked in the face by bursts and bursts of guitar backed soberbly by Chuck and the boys. Into Spotlight Kid and somehow the last 12 years seem not to have passed at all. To someone who's never seen a live Rainbow show before it was quite a nostalgic experience, but I guess that the novelty will wear off pretty quickly as there simply hasn't been any innovative thoughts put into this opening. " That was something you recognized and this is from our new album, but if you haven't bought it yet, it's Too Late For Tears." Could have been lifted out of any old Coverdale between-song banter that one... The whole feel of this song coming at this point in the show, makes me think of the 1993 tour. And as things progressed it was clear the 1995 Rainbow liveset was buildt on the same priciples as the old Rainbow livesets from the early eighties, mixed heavily with some touch of 1980's and 90's Deep Purple livesets. Too late for Tears was simply Talk About Love and this was followed by Black Night with a touch of Long Live Rock'n'Roll riff, er... sorry, the other way around - this is Rainbow, not Deep Purple. Anyway the idea was pretty much like we saw it on the 1993 tour - there was only the riff from Black Night and generally this track included more sing-a-long Rainbow than to fill your worst nightmare! Doogie tried an onstage-type Starstruck, but no one seemed interested in joining him - what a shame. I really hoped for previously unheard livetakes of old gems, but as it turned out there was just the one.
To this point the show's had a good powerful start, ruined terribly ( at least for us further back in the house) by that sing-a-long bit. Next up was Hunting Humans, a real favourite from the album. But as the sound was still miles away from perfect, much of Ritchie's little doodlings were lost, burried in a very muddy, unclear sound, with only the vocals almost tearing our ears apart over the top. Doogie White has a very powerful voice. As with Joe Lynn Whatsisname he's spot on for every note, wether high or not (and he does go high every now and then), but there seems to be less heart than technique in it. Sometimes he manages to sound like Dio, sometimes like Turnip, sometimes like Bruce Dickinson, inded he moves about very much like said ex-Iron Maiden frontman, which I guess, is an improvement compared to the American. White had a very good rapport with the crowd, frequently pumping them with great effect. He often likes to hold the microphone towards the crowd for the most familiar parts of the lyrics of many songs (even the new ones), but this sadly breaks up the flow and interrupts ones concentration.
Another one of Doogie's faults (in my book anyway) is his between-song chit-chat. I'd rather he shut up than say stuff like "The master of the Stratocaster - Ritchie Blackmore and he'll do, I believe the Blackmore Blues for you". It just isn't necessary and we all know who the banjoplayer tonight is and those who haven't heard the Blues before won't care for it's title anyway. Later he'd be namedropping old Rainbow albums to introduce songs, pretty much the way it was done onstage by Deep Purple Mark 4 mop. This lends a disturbing retro-fell of nostalgia, old hits, when we were young and better atmosphere, which is not what it's all about (at least I hope not!).
Blues was the Gypsy's Kiss/Dead or alive/etc. intro to Slave to the Highway, sorry Wolf to the moon... admittedly this is "just" another Death Alley Driver-type album opener I still hold it among the six good tracks on the album. Not least because of the solo break midway through - this was all we got. Because right at that moment the song suddenly grounded to a halt and turned into (oh no!) Difficult to Cure, complete with Paul Morris doing string answers on his synthesizer as heard on the Finyl Vinyl album. Cute. The track pumped along nicely and Ritchie could probably play it in it's complete form in his sleep. Anyway, we were fortunate and they only played the first half, which then was followed by the keyboard-solo. Opening with som pretty good classical piano work, Morris initially impressed me. The piece he played probably has a title but I wouldn't know it. He's also got one of those original Moogs which he sets to the old Tony Carey solosound. Great - if it hadn't been for the totally chaotic nonsense he chose to play on it! By the ending of his solo, complete with drummachine- clap-along, etc. he had overstayed his welcome by about 100%.
Still I'm sad was next and yes, it was introduced by Ritchie, but not with a quiet piece as on the album. Rather it was a heavy riff and we're into a great version of of the track. But once again they need to break up the flow and adrenalized atmosphere (among parts of the crowd anyway). This time it's the drum-solo. Let it be known that Chuck B=FCrgi is perhaps the technically most brilliant drummer ever in Rainbow. He's powerful, precise and to the point without too much fooling around, but he also has small delicacies in his playing which makes him a very versatile drummer. But for drum-solos I prefer personality and musicality rather than speed and flawless technique. All praise to the Ian Paices and the John Bonhams of this world (and the next).
Man On The Silver mountain next and with nothing new whatsoever and a track that's been played to death ever since it first appeared, I see it's inclusion here as nothing but a crowdpleaser and therefore quite dull. Yawn Ritchie, you can do better than this. Where are alle the surprises? I thought you'd rehearsed Rainbow Eyes and Jealous Lover, or how about The Cut Runs Deep, Mistreated or Spanish Archer? With such a backcatalouge and no limits vocalistwise why no go for broke and do something completely new? Eh? Because this is Ritchie Blackmore and because this is Rainbow and... well, we all know the rest!
But then, we're exactly one hour into the concert, the long solos have been and gone and we're heading for the climatic build-up to the end of the show. And this is when things really picked up. "See if you remenber this one" and we're into Temple Of The King. Not a faultless opening, but still the very idea of the song live is exciting. The way they do it is more or less as a substitute for Catch The Rainbow, though tonight it didn't build very much. Ritchie let loose in his solo and seemed to be honestly trying at something good. But he cut it short, volume back very low for the final verse and it was all over. Wow! On a good night this will knock people dead. Generally speaking there were lots of moments where it felt like there was room for one of "those" solos had it been one of "those" nights. One has to admit Ritchie is yet again the only focuspoint and when he dosn't deliver, there doen't seem to be much point to many of these songs. Though we're now into the middle section of the show where the good tracks appear and the said room for solos can be made. Next up is Black Masquerade featuring an electric version of the acoustic baroque-type solo on the album version. I'd hoped for this part to have been extended somewhat when the song reached the stage, but no. Like a lot of the other stuff on the album, there are hints of greatness that in some way or another seems unfinished or just not developed into what might have lifted it out of just being just another Rainbow album.
Ariel was up next and this was one I also had high hopes for. I cannot for the life of me understand why this song doesn't have a proper ending on the album. Candice comes in over the quiet piece and breathes the title of the song, but after a short while it suddenly fades out. For the liveversion I was sure there must have been worked out a proper ending and perhaps even more. As it turns out the song doesn't only share the type of songtitle with Anya, but it's role in the liveset was also similar to that of Anya's. The song itself was preceeded by a quiet organ/guitar piece, based on the idea of the live intro to Anya - it just seems so false or clich=E9-ridden and I couldn't help ponder the fact that Ritchie would give up all that fantastic musical camaraderie he had with the three other guys in Purple, just because of his quarrels with Ian Gillan. And now watching his Rainbow show, shaped, I assume, to fit strictly into his idea of what it should be, and yet with so many similarities to the 1993 tour. Sad. But on with the song they went and it was pretty OK, as per the album version.
Cue Candice's breathing vocal and the big moment I have looked forward to so much - the guitar solo. And hey what's this? Doogie is crooning his head off over this beautyful quietness, while Ritchie's behind him making fragile attempts at a solo. Fortunately Doogie shuts up and now, surely, now it's time for Ritchie to let loose and floor us all with one of "those" solos. But what's going on ? He signals to the band to go even more quiet. He repeats it a few times until he seems satisfied with them, he doodles aimlessly for a short bit and then brings the song to its, I must admit, impressive climatic ending. But the solo was almost nonexistant! It also accured to me during the first parts of the song that it was performed painfully slow and it dragged like hell, not unlike some deadly wounded dinosaur seeking a place to hide. Ariel might be a good track and all that, but the version tonight certainly did not go smooth and it somehow lacked something. Indeed many of the songs on the album could have benefited from a good working over by mister Glover, Lord and Gillan, and then they probably wouldn't have felt out of place on the Battle Rages On album.
Stand and Fight is definately not one of my favourites on the album, though there seems to be something about it still. Perhaps it's the way it drives along. But here I was positively surprised, especially by Ritchie's solo, as it seems this song really inspired him to go on with the most furious soloing yet tonight, much like Under The Gun used to sometimes trigger incredible things from the man. This one also featured a rather nice, intense ending. Again I do not understand why this hadn't been worked out in time for the album. But then.....
"Do you remenber, remember the name..." Perfect Strangers is now suffering from the same type of rewritten lyrics as Smoke On The Water did when Mark 3 and 4 did it. And now very much like onthe Slaves & Masters tour it's obvious there's only one man who can sing this song properly, though I'd say Doogie handled it a tad better than Turnip. For the lines "one thousand warriors I have known" where the lights used to go up on the crowd in 1993, and the line " a string of silver hanging from the sky" where white lights would shine into the structure of the lighting rig to give exactly that effect also in 1993, both these effects were sadly missed tonight. Ever since that tour, whenever I've seen some of the same tracks done live, I've missed that incredible visual experience which also was a part of the 1993 tour. God, how I sometimes miss that tour!
Hall Of The Mountain King was predictably enough the track that would end the show (before the encores) and apart from having the same ridiculous speeding up at the end as on the album, it didn't serve much of a purpose really. Somehow the riff seemed grander and much more interesting when Ritchie used to just fiddle around with it on the 1993 tour, more or less just to pull the rest of the band round by their noses. It was somewhere in the middle of this song That Doogie's high pitched vocals, mixed much too high in the sound, managed to blow a fuse (I guess) in all the treble speakers in the P.A. on the right-hand side of the stage suddenly, blimp, just the damp sound of the band with the top range missing! This stayed so till way into the first encore, Burn, when it suddenly, very pleasingly, returned. The track was done Mark 3 style, meaning that Greg Smith handled the old Glenn Hughes parts, though sadly (again) without having listened too closely to any of the live recordings of this, as he just went by the studioversions without the high pitched Hughes screams. indeed the same thing happend in Smoke On The Water. This was preceeded by the 1993-style quiet guitarintro and featured a wildly intense guitarsolo, though what happend next was probably the all-time low for the show. During the sing-a-long bit (please note that these Finns were going absolutely bonkers at every single wave from Doogie and the atmosphere, generally, in the hall was steaming) the band, one by one, led by Ritchie, put down their instruments and left the stage, leaving Doogie to say the final goodnights over the crowd's "Smoke on the Water; fire in the sky..." This was so silly, especially since it was so obviously planned out for them to return at the end the song, as they all were crouching behind the drumkit! So, after a little while of the Finns screaming their lungs out, not realizing that they were part of perhaps the most silly stunt in decades, the band returned, finished the song properly and said their goodbyes. Ritchie, as after Hall Of The Mountain King, went all the way along the edge of the stage to shake hands with the audience and stayed unusually long onstage after Smoke had finished.
The backdrop was adorned with a slide of the albumsleeve, with a rainbow superimposed on top of it, perhaps symbolising Ritchie as the indisputable leader of this project. Tha same Image had been projected onto the backdrop for the opening of the show and during Difficult to Cure a drawing of Beethoven had been cast up there, though arriving suspicously late in the song.
So it came to the end of the first Rainbow concert in 12 years, about 40 minutes past midnight. The show had originally been billed as starting at 10 pm, but because there was a symphony orchestra rehearsing at the venue during the day Rainbow weren't let in to set up their equipment till very late, which I guess accounts for the almost one hour delay of the show start at 10:55pm. Indeed the band had first wanted to do all the tour production rehearsals at this venue the week leading up to the show, but because of the said orchestra it hadn't been possible. Instead the production rehearsals took place in Copenhagen at "K.B. Hallen" where the band will perform their fourth show on Oct. 6th, 1995. A Danish journalist had been invited to the rehearsals and did a full page (tabloid size) report on his findings on Friday=2029th October, complete with a provisional setlist that included Since You Been Gone after Smoke On The Water, and excluded Wolf To The Moon. A narrow escape there!! Actually I was positively surprised that neither the former nor All Night Long were performed, even in short glimpses. Does the man have sense after all?
Ritchie is using a new setup onstage. The white Marshalls are all gone (chock, horror!!) and he's now using two insignificant looking ENGL amps, hooked up to three cabinets. A very scaled down setup, as opposed to the old setup of three amps and six cabinets. The new equipment sounded very good and suits his new 1990's sound very well. As for the looks of them, he spent most of his time either in front of the drumkit or by the keyboards during the show. The basspedals are still there, and I suppose he must have some sort of effects rack there as well.
My overall conclusion of the proceedings is that whenever he chooses to have a good night he most surely will blow everyone away with this show, even with the buildt-in faults of the solos, some pointless inclusions in the setlist, etc. But I feel there is gonna be far between the good nights (even farther than in 1993). Then, if Ritchie had an off-day, you could always watch Jon or Gillan or Paicey. With this new Rainbow once you've seen Ritchie there ain't much more to write home about. I hope Doogie settles down a little with his between-song nonsense and stays with the band along with Chuck and the bassplayer. But as usual it's hard to predict about the future, especially the one of Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow.
Sep 30/ Oct 1, 1995
Rasmus Heide
Svante Pettersson 13 december 1995
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