Thanks Daniel, a wonderful snippet there of a very good rock song from Rainbow. It goes to show that by then (1995 era) Ritchie had let go of the AOR thing that he was responsible for on S&M. Getting a different vocalist that didn’t croon that style like JLT did. Jimi Jamison the original possibility for DP in 1990 would have been too AOR also no doubt. But at least he hadn’t been in Rainbow and it would have been different in that aspect. Thanks again, I have always enjoyed the SIUA album.. Cheers.
I was at the Palalido in Milan in 1995 in the third row (I probably had Andrea in front of me but I didn’t know it yet!)
It was certainly an unforgettable concert for every fan, but for me it was clear how the band was technically poor compared to Ritchie and even the honest singer that was Doogie, the others very scholastic.
SIUA like all Rainbow albums had some good songs and some fillers.
Ritchie was definitely happier with those session musicians than he was with Purple on the TBRO tour.
It would have been interesting to have a successor album, but Ritchie decided to move on too soon…
I was at the Hammersmith Odeon (OK, Labatt’s Apollo!) on November 3 and 4, 1995. Anyone who was present at that first night will never forget it, I’m sure…
Daniel, any rehearsal tape with Ritchie is always of historical value, so thanks for digging this out.
The first thing I notice is how loud Blackmore is, but then it’s his band, so he can control the volumes I guess. Rainbow was apparently not the band where one of the other guys could have said “Mind turning down, Ritchie, you’re way too loud, this is a rehearsal, we all want to hear what we are doing.”
As for Blackmore’s rhythm guitar playing, I never said he couldn’t play rhythm guitar, he just had no real interest in it. Blackmore can develop a funk feel - Stormbringer (the album) showed that amply -, but what he plays here is his typical riffage accompaniment in a very drawing by numbers fashion. Yawn. Not exactly Andy Summers if you ask me. There was nothing new here.
There seems to be this concept in Purple fan quarters that if you like Purple you must somehow love Rainbow too or better still prefer them (shudder the thought). I’ve never subscribed to this school of worship and I can exactly tell you why, mathematically explained so to say:
- What is there to find attractive about RJD’s, JLT’s and Doogie White’s lyrics if you like me appreciated Ian Gillan’s acid wit, humor and creativity in writing lyrics? From Mary Long to Man On The Silver Mountain, is that supposed to be some kind of anthropological progress?
- If I loved DP for Paicey’s elegance in the drum department, what appeal is a conceptually totally opposed drummer like Cozy Powell supposed to hold for me, a man who sounded like an XXXL version of Mick Tucker? If Ritchie incongruously dumbs down the drum department, why do I have to cheer at the sides?
- I don’t think I have to explain to you why I did not consider any of the Rainbow keyboarders - that includes a then still young Don - in the league of Jon Lord as regards being the oil to Ritchie’s vinegar.
- I’m a bass player, tell me what Rainbow album I need to own as an inspiration to my art? With the exception of groovemeister Craig Gruber, no Rainbow bassist was ever allowed to express anything with Rainbow, not even poor Roger, shackled to the non-swing drummers as he was. Roger only started playing bass again when DP reunited and took a real jump in development thanks to Steve Morse (as Roger has repeatedly pointed out).
- Ok, I get it then, I’m supposed to adore Rainbow because Ritchie was such a pivotal figure in Purple? And there is even more undiluted Blackmore in Rainbow than there was in Purple? Too much of a good thing … I think Ritchie was a great fit with Purple, inspirational, driving and also contained as regards some of the not so great aspects of his playing which he honed to perfection over the years, but also very much narrowed down stylistically. For me, as the seventies came to an end, Ritchie’s guitar playing and soloing had become extremely mannered. Forgive me if I admire Tommy Bolin’s musicality as evidenced in Private Eyes more than the adolescent fantasy fest that is Rainbow Rising.
And there you have it, a methodically sound explanation why I am not and never was a Rainbow fan. The inferiority of that chapter of Ritchie’s musical career always seemed self-evident to me. That might befuddle some people or rub them the wrong way, but last I heard this is a Purple, not a Blackmore site and I do not have to swear allegiance to one man’s narrow vision of what music should be.
Uwe
No good at all you kmow
Thorsun, just a quick reply:
The “just a few hour’s tank drive” was a sardonic quip pointing to the fact how Warsaw Pact forces always intervened whenever one of the Eastern Bloc countries like Hungary or Czechoslovakia dared to stray. Poland very nearly had that fate too in the wake of Solidarnosc. I’m very well aware of how constraining the Iron Curtain was and would have preferred you to witness its fall much earlier.
As for the “marching hordes of the Red Army”, I’m pretty well-read about WWII and have been to Warsaw, Lidice and Oradour, didn’t those Red Army “Beasts from the East” also liberate Auschwitz where the superior and highly cultured German race set itself a lasting memorial? And last I heard, Allied bombs stopped raining on Dresden and Nürnberg once Germany had capitulated (as you do when you lose a war you started foolishly), I’m not aware that any “capitulation” by the Jewish populace in Europe would have ever stopped the gas chambers. The killing just went on and on and on, even surrendering couldn’t save you.
I am aware that Poland has suffered under Soviet/Russian hegemony too (and how historically your relationship with your eastern neighbors is strained), but frankly I deem any type of “the Soviets were as bad as the Germans or even worse” relativism obscene. My grandfather was a Nazi and returned from Soviet captivity in 1949, if you ever visit my home town, it’s just a short ride to the Soviet POW cemetery near a small village where I can show you the single and mass graves of those Red Army soldiers who didn’t. They had a camp there where they interned sick and wounded Soviet soldiers they extracted from the regular camps for being unable to work, only to simply let them die there without medical treatment. The main crime of these “marching hordes of the Red Army” being that they defended their home country when it was attacked to be destroyed and the majority of its population killed or starved to death.
Uwe, I’m not going to continue this historical / political topic here, sorry, especially since I don’t get the support from you that I asked for politely in PM. I never intended to discuss the politics and history in public, and I am not going to sit on it now. In these days of trolling and all other idiocy wars over internet - I think it’s a waste of life and time, especially as the history can’t be changed. My geopolitical location is what it is and neither the nation, nor the circumstances support any open discussions of that. The only aspect that matters for that forum is that up to late 1990s we weren’t able to access the wealth of live shows that happened west of Oder. And that’s it. Topics closed.
Thorsun, sorry, I didn’t see your PM until now, I had only checked my emails and found nothing, I’ll of course oblige - Simsalabim!
Stop carrying on like a spoilt brat Uwe, it is pathetic. No one is trying to convince you of all people, that you should like something or as you put it, worship something or someone. Good folk commenting here are just enjoying the music and live performance clips and the history etc, simple really. Are you a Troll. We know the definition of two other meanings of the word troll, the Scandinavian mischief maker and the fishing technique, but there is the other one. If people cannot post a comment without you thinking you have to reply with poisonous bile every time, well enough said there. And don’t talk about fanboy worship either, you display plenty of that in your ridiculous comments at times ( cue Ian Gillan and Bob Ezrin for starters). You are or were a Rainbow aficionado, you went to concerts and purchased albums in various formats. You had better throw them out then and attempt to forget those ‘experiences’ of your concerts. Like the one of you waiting for hours on end for you ‘demigod’ Ritchie to turn up, Munich wasn’t it, 1977 or thereabouts. Talk about a fanboy. We are glad you are tormented by Rainbow (and Gary Moore, plus Cozy) in a certain aspect, however the unfortunate thing is that you keep banging on as if you are in court. Old habits die hard eh? We can just imagine the judge: “Mr Hornung, will you stop this persistent display of wanton arrogance and personal indignation? This court has a time limit, and enough time has been wasted listening to your diatribe”. “Court dismissed”. Uwe: “But your honour, I haven’t even started yet” Uwe is still standing in his pulpit waffling on to nobody, even the cleaning lady has left the building in a state of disbelief. Get over it, please, for sanities sake! Or should that be, “get back in your box and behave yourself”. Cheers
We go in circles, Herr MacGregor, I am a chronologist of Blackmore as a musician, that doesn’t force me to regard him as a deity or consider Rainbow’s music as good as Purple’s, much less superior to it. You see a contradiction in me not praising his solo music, yet collecting everything of it, while I don’t even see your point. A historian doesn’t need to like his subject at all and certainly not all eras a person goes through. I chronicle Blackmore’s development over the decades and for me he peaked with Purple. No Rainbow line-up outshines Mk II, III or even IV for me (Mk I was an altogether different kettle of fish, you can’t really compare it with Rainbow or the Purple line-ups that followed it).
Daniel asked me to reevaluate, that is how my post came about.
For the record: If you think that Blackmore was the best thing about Purple and all other components replaceable, then I guess Rainbow gives you even more of what you crave for. But I don’t crave for more Blackmore, I think his influence in Purple was ample and often enough a little bit less influence on his part would have done both him and the band more good. I prefer bands to solo artists in general, I find a collaborative approach more fruitful, but to Ritchie democracy is apparently stressful.
I loved the Police, I’m not a great Sting fan. Accept for chrissakes that Rainbow was for me largely anticlimactic, even as a teen, maybe our musical tastes differed, ok? And not because of some “feeling” I lacked, but because Rainbow’s music was in many ways retrogressive to Purple and less of a group effort. When Rainbow was still very much a new band, Ritchie was questioned by a journo why the band didn’t really offer anything new. And Ritchie shot back: “I never said I wanted to create something new with Rainbow. Go to current Deep Purple (Uwe’s edit: he meant Mk IV) if you want to hear something different, they are now playing the new music. I wanted to go back to the music I like after Stormbringer. And I think there is a market for that.”
Ritchie wanted to go back and I simply didn’t want join him doing so, simple as that. And given that Rainbow’s commercial appeal lagged severely behind Purple, I scratch my head why after eight Rainbow studio albums that did not tilt the world on its axis I have to explain myself for that. Those albums are just a few more random notes in Purple’s rich and twisted Family History, nothing more and nothing less.