ON STAGE

This is a good live album, but I prefer the original Rainbow line-up. Blackmore added very good drummer Cozy Powell to the band and other two new members, Jimmy Bain and Tony Carey. Powell was a powerful drummer with a lot of experience, and he is the musician who shines more in this album, apart from Dio and Blackmore, IMO. There are very good songs in this album, particularly "Man on the Silver Mountain" and "Sixteenth Century Greensleeves". This live version of "Catch the Rainbow" is very long, and because of this, it lost power. I prefer the studio version. The keyboards sound "distant" in the mix, and it sounds like they didn`t use a Mellotron on tour for this song particularly. So, it also lost the "magic" of the studio version. "Still I`m Sad" is played with lyrics this time, also in a long version which has not the power of the studio version.

In conclusion, it is a good live album, but the long versions of some of the songs have not the power of the studio versions, IMO.