1165. Rainbow / On Stage. 1977. 5/5

By the time this album was being thought of and considered, Rainbow had already built themselves up to being a hugely massive band. Led by virtuoso guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, and featuring the amazing vocals and writing talents of Ronnie James Dio, the band was rounded out by other amazing musicians of the era – Jimmy Bain on bass guitar, Cozy Powell on drums, and Tony Carey on keyboards. Touring on the back of the ground-breaking and simply incredible “Rising” album, with the band now in the groove, it was decided to record some of the shows with the idea of releasing them as a live album, to showcase the band at its best in its element. As a result, several dates in Germany and Japan were recorded in late 1976.

 
Some of the things that, in my opinion, make it difficult to release a truly representative live album of the band at this time must surely have been the same things that producer Martin Birch came up against in his battle to have this done and released properly. The first issue was the length of the songs as they were played in the live environment. Now, Rainbow was already renown for longish tracks when it came to their albums, but in the live environment it was even more prevalent. As was often the case in the 1960’s and 1970’s, bands played extended length version of their songs live, which allowed the musicians to showcase their wares. The guitars and keyboards would often please themselves for what they were playing, with the drums and bass holding the rhythm of the background until such time as they broke back into the song again. Now this was all fine (although, if you ask me for my personal preference, I would rather hear another 6 songs being played than have several songs extended into freeform experimentations that may be okay for awhile but in the long run just a little bit boring), but when it came to trying to put them on vinyl, it made it difficult for Birch to fit them on one side of an album without cutting the songs in half! Birch eventually solved this by having the songs on the double album out of sequence that they were played, and had them such that they could fit snugly on their section of the vinyl. This we had the songs, but not in the order they were played. Probably not a big deal, but one that could cause annoyance for some fans. The length of the songs also prevented Birch from being able to have all of the songs played on the two LPs, which meant that “Stargazer” and “Do You Close Your Eyes” were both left off the album, as it was felt that having this set as a three LP collection would have been too costly and overpriced for the fans. It also meant that one of the band’s most amazing tracks “Stargazer”, was ditched for two cover songs, Deep Purple’s “Mistreated” (which of course Ritchie had co-written) and The Yardbirds’ “Still I’m Sad”. This seems like an injustice, though to be fair I love both of those songs and the versions that appear here.
Apart from this, check out the majesty of the songs here. The amazing “Kill the King”, opening each gig on the end of this tour even though it had yet to be laid down in the studio – it didn’t appear until the next studio album, “Long Live Rock and Roll”. The awesomeness of “Man of the Silver Mountain” in its best habitat, the live version. “Catch the Rainbow” and “Sixteenth Century Greensleeves” just terrific. The best ever version of “Mistreated”, with Ronnie on vocals and Ritchie brilliant on guitar. And then the best ever version of “Still I’m Sad” with Ronnie on vocals and Ritchie on guitar. I still cannot believe that the version they did of this on the debut album was done just as an instrumental without Ronnie providing the vocals. What the bloody hell was Ritchie thinking of?!

If you’ve been here before, then you’ve heard me say this before. Live albums should be good, because they show a band in their natural environment, and they should also contain the best songs of the band. So in essence live albums should always be awesome, and if they aren’t the band has stuffed up big time.
I first had a copy of this album after high school, and always enjoyed it but was more interested in listening to the studio albums than this live album, for the reasons already mentioned – not enough songs, and the songs here are too long and have too much improvising to stretch them out. Eventually though, this grew on me to the point of amazing obsession. And the main reason for this is the quality of Ronnie James Dio’s amazing vocals. Seriously, check them out, listen to how he carries himself and the songs, and you’ll know what I mean. And that’s not to put down the other musicians here because all of them are also brilliant. Ritchie’s guitaring is at the top of his game, Jimmy Bain is bossing the bass, and Cozy Powell’s booming drums again showcase his great talent.
I think it’s amazing that a band used to play a song live that it hadn’t yet actually recorded in the studio. Imagine turning up to a gig now and having a band open their gig every night with a song you didn’t know. But I love this version. And listening to Dio singing “Mistreated” is just brilliant. But not as good as him singing “Still I’m Sad”. This is such a scintillating version of this song. Listen to the original Yardbirds version, and then what Rainbow has done on this album. Chalk and cheese. It is such a shame they never did a studio version of it (with Dio singing at least), but this version on this album will always be one of my favourite things that Rainbow and Dio did.
This live album is top shelf. It’s one of the best out there, capturing that moment in time for this band when all members were at their very best, and although it would have been great to have the whole show from start to finish (which, if you are interested, you can now get on the “Live in Germany 1976” that was released in the 1990’s), it is still one of the greats. Only one of the band remains alive, and I miss all of them every time I put this album on.