Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 11:10:46 +0100 
From: dirk burm 
Subject: Rainbow in Vorst Nationaal 

Vorst Nationaal is a venue that can hold around 10,000 people ( since a month or so, it is renewed a bit so the capacity is expanded from around 8,000 to 10,000 and a balcony is installed).

The ticket showed a picture of Ritchie with his Stratocaster in hand ( he uses a metal nut on it and he has hand-signed it just like the signature guitars Fender makes for Yngwie, Eric Clapton, ...). The ticket stated that the concert starts at 8 pm. We arrived at the concert at 8.10 pm. Milky was playing already. I guess there were 5,000 or 6,000 people at the gig. Milky had there own PA control board and soundman. They had a very good sound and there music is nice.

They stopped playing at 8.40 pm. Before the end of the last song, Rainbow roadies already took the cymbals away. This was very hilarious and the drummer finished the song with a already stripped down drum.

At 9.10 pm the picture on the front of the CD was projected and orchestra music was being played. It started of with majestic German music ( like the singalong drink songs they play at beer feasts ) and then it went over in the American National Anthem and finally it changed to "Over the Rainbow". The lights went on, Rainbow was on staged and Ritchie started playing "Spotlight Kid". He was using the Strat without the guitar synth. Side note : to my taste his sound is too processed (too much delay, much more than on the CD) and guitar intros like in SK become very unclear) Ritchie is playing ENGL amps ( his setup included 2 heads (1 powered up) and 3 cabinets (ENGL cabinets with 4x12s). Halfway through the song Ritchie changed guitars and started playing the strat with the guitar synth on it.

Ritchie is standing in front of the drums behind Doogie most of the time.

Too late for Tears : Ritchie makes a mistake in his guitar solo and looses the count. He starts counting with his finger next to his head (you see him saying : 1, 2, 3, 4) and then starts playing again.

Long live Rock 'n Roll : with a Black Night interlude. During the interlude Doogie sings "Long Live Rock 'n Roll" and Ritchie wants to change to another song. So Ritchie is shaking his head to Doogie that he should listen to his guitar and to the public, because the public seems to notice Black Night prior to Doogie. Ritchie starts playing the Black Night riff, Doogie sings the riff along. Ritchie's switching between LLRR and BN, Doogie doesn't follow so he's singing LLRR over the BN riff. Ritchie's shaking his head when Doogie doesn't follow. No references to SKOW or Starstruck.

Hunting Humans : During the first measures Ritchie's sitting on his knees next to his pedal board selecting channels with his elbow (!). You don't hear any guitar until Doogie starts singing.

Greensleeves : No Blackmore's Blues. Doogie steps up to Ritchie and talks to him. Ritchie nods and they start playing Greensleeves. During the song Ritchie takes a stick that can hold a drink at the end and starts handing over 3 or 4 drinks to the public. Doogie is singing something like 'Drinking is our only joy'.

Wolf to the Moon :

Difficult to Cure : To play the main theme Ritchie seems to use something that looked like a little plastic slide (as big as a cigarette). He took it from the keyboard and held it in his mouth during the song's intro, he used it during the theme and then threw it away. I don't know why he used it.

Around this time they started playing a song with in the chorus words like "falderie, faldera, ..". I know the song but not the title.

Still I'm Sad: like on the CD without the CD intro.

Man on the Silver Mountain: I think Ritchie will overdub the actual solo in the studio later on and that he played the backing solo here. He started playing a couple of notes on the count of the song on the 4/5th string around 5th position (do you notice I play guitar myself?) and the rest of the song was controlled feedback.

Temple of the King : very good solo from Ritchie.

Doogie says something like: 'By the way, Ritchie owns me 50 bucks. You know, yesterday he smashed my mike stand. Maybe he can give me one of his guitars.' Ritchie is not even reacting, with a flat face Ritchie starts counting and they start the next song.

Black Masquerade : containing I think some small part of Ariel (I don't remember this well).

Stand & Fight :

Around here they play "Waltzing Mathilda". Doogie sings something like "We keep the best song for last". The crowd cheers.

After the song Doogie says something like: If you wonder why I walk so funny. Well, last week we were in Germany and we went horse riding. We shot the video there for the first single of our CD...

Ritchie walks up to Doogie and talks in his ear. Doogie looks surprised, Ritchie walks away and Doogie laughs a bit reluctant in the microphone looking at Ritchie. Before Doogie can say another word, Ritchie starts playing 'Since you be gone'. Intro, first verse, chorus and stops.

Paul Morris is looking round a bit while Ritchie is pointing to him to start playing. Paul notices Ritchies pointing and nods to Ritchie what to do. Ritchie shouts something and Paul starts playing 'Perfect Strangers'. Ritchie is really into this one. He's sitting on his knees and waving his body (you know what I mean?) reaching to the crowd.

Hall of the Mountain King: During the acceleration of the theme, Ritchie accelerates so much the other musicians stop following him. Ritchie is standing before the drums with his back to Chuck Burgi. Because of his speeding up, Ritchie sometimes stops to synchronize again. The song stops and Ritchie runs (and I mean run) of the stage. The other members wave to the public and step of the stage. The crowd is cheering asking for the band to return. They start projecting a picture with RAINBOW written on it and the music of Over The Rainbow starts playing, 1 minute, 2 minutes, ... Nothing. The lights go on and the concert is finished. No bis numbers. The crowd whisles. It is 10.40 pm now, i.e. the concert lasted 1 hour and a half.

There was also a keyboard solo of Paul Morris but I don't remember in what song. He started of playing Bach on electric piano and switched to synth after a couple of minutes ( the synth had a Tony Carey kind of sound, like in the intro to Stargazer live) and also some Hammond kind of sound mixed with it. The solo was maybe 7 or 8 minutes long.

Chuck Burgi played a rather short drum solo starting off using electronic drum sound (sounding a bit in the vein of Bonzo's Montreux (John Bonham), I mean the sound, not the solo).

Ritchie was always giving hand cues to the other members, even if they played songs like Black Masquerade with the same number of measures as on the CD. Ritchie is clearly at the controls and the members have to do what he tells them to. Doogie is very lively, running around and jumping. He would have suited very well in Iron Maiden. The harmony singing with Greg Smith is also very nice. Candice was nowhere in sight (maybe that's the band (read Ritchie) didn't return. It was very clear to me now what a big ego Ritchie really has. Although he played a lot of rythm and solo, at certain moments like during the verses of LLRR or MOTSM, he justs doesn't play or plays some very fast slurries of notes that you can't make anything of because of the processed sound he's using. With that kind of sound, you can get away with murder I think.

I think I'll stop my raging on.

Bye, Dirk