Rainbow concert review; September 27th, 1977 by RicardO

The following is a review of one Rainbow concert, originally posted to alt.music.deep-purple.

From: mikekeo@concentric.net (RicardO)
Subject: RAINBOW OSLO 1977 REVIEW
Date: 24 Apr 1997 20:01:43 GMT

"CATCH THE RAINBOW" OSLO 1977 REVIEW

Quality is poor-fair and the performance seems to be quite good. How the show went...Standard set list. KTK- Opens here as usual after the complimentary OTR intro. RB seems to be playing really swell and Dio is ON! Really clean, fast solo from devil-digits.

MISTREATED- Boring opening but the band really gets into it once the song gets going.. The middle guitar solo is usually a good/bad thing and this one is pretty despite the recording quality. After the guitar solo in the middle, the quality again takes a dive......bummer as the gang really are playing well. To much delay on Dio's vocals..... Let me clean the cassette deck heads and see if that helps... NOPE! wwwhhhaaa The end harmonies are off a bit and not getting any better.

16th CENT GS- Yet another slightly different version of GS (traditional) and it is cut short. The crowd is a rowdy one! They are playing this a bit faster than normal too. Pleeeeeeeease God...NO SLIDE solo!!! Dio is really belting this one out. The harmonies just do not cut it here either (unlike the new Rainbow). DANG IT!!! Slide.............:-(((((( Second solo is better! No slide! :-) I really wish the quality was just a bit better as Dio is really shinning!

CTR- Ronnie has remarked that there is no rainbow overhead this evening. Maybe Rickie fired the rainbow. RB is doing some noodling on what appears to be a bit of a Bach piece. And there is *that* unidentified classical piece that continues to show up. Usually RB's chorus effect is overpowering, but here it is very subtle and sounds good. Dio is smooth and harmonies are finally on. RB very providing a very staccato first mellow solo and no slide. An aggressive solo from "VADER". Oh my my my...A real nice guitar break with some cool runs! Then it is...WHAM back into another solo!!! RD displays his vocal power at the end too.

LLRR- Ronnie states this is the first time they have done this one live. I cannot get over how alive this sounds compared to the versions being played now.

MOSM-Lazy starts this off. Just a noisy version though and it is of course cut short. MOSM is fast and the crowd is pumped again. RB smokes off a solo for our pleasure.... THEN is off again with his bass pedals and strat solo at the end and again the guitar seems to be getting abused briefly. Ahhhh, there is RB's blues!This is a good one. Lots of feel to it. Geesssshhh during the organ solo here I can actually hear an INFANT crying in the crowd!!! Boy this a long blues jam...... The baby must be close to the recorder as I can hear it again......A brief STARSTRUCK is thrown in here and is not done very well.

SIS- Almost unlistenable due to the poor quality and things are distorted. RB really lets loose with a vengeance here but I can barely hear him. David Stone does another great solo as does Cozy.

So closes the evening's festivities........If not for the poor quality of the recording this would have been a FANTASTIC show. I enjoyed it in spite of that though.

RicardO