ON STAGE

Rainbow

Prog Related

3.86 | 157 ratings

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Easy Livin
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin

A pot of gold

This is how a live album, indeed a live performance should be. It was perhaps a fortunate quirk of fate that with an at the time very limited repertoire to chose from, Ritchie and his new colleagues decided to significantly elongate the tracks they selected for live rendition.

Most of the material here is taken from the first album when the band was called Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow. Once the marketing people had ensured their public was aware of the legendary guitarist's prime place in the band, the name was quickly abbreviated.

The highlight of the set is the 15+ minute version of "Catch the Rainbow", which affords Ritchie space to extend his input to the track significantly. To his credit, he does not attempt to add blistering licks, but maintains the integrity of this beautifully melodic piece. Ronnie James Dio takes to opportunity to encourage some crowd participation, but even this is done tastefully.

Blackmore also lays claim to the Coverdale/Hughes era Deep Purple song "Mistreated" from the "Burn" album. Once again, the song is significantly extended to 13 minutes. The piece suits Dio's vocal style well, while Ritchie develops what was in any case one of his finest solos while a member of DP.

Both "Sixteenth century Greensleeves" and the cover of Jeff Beck and the Yardbird's "Still I'm sad" are considerably longer than their studio counterparts. The latter also regains the vocal refrain omitted from the first Rainbow album.

There have been further live offerings from Rainbow since this early release, and while they are of a consistently high standard, none has managed to recapture the power and excitement of "On stage". A fine album.

Easy Livin | 4/5 | 2007-3-26

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