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It's Christmas come early for fans of Ritchie Blackmore and Ronnie James Dio as this long-shelved recording from Rainbow's first tour of Europe in 1976 finally sees rerelease. The 2-CD set only contains 8 songs but that's because Blackmore had only recently shed the constraints of Deep Purple and now could improvise and jam to his heart's content, which he does here with fifteen-minute versions of "Catch the Rainbow," "Stargazer" and "Still I'm Sad." "Sixteenth Century Greensleeves" from Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow doubles in length and the Blackmore/David Coverdale composition "Mistreated" stretches to sixteen minutes and includes a song-closing segment where Blackmore and Dio perform a bit of guitar-versus-voice scat singing. There is perhaps a bit of noodling or overindulgence to be found in some of the jams but the recording was made, after all, in the '70s when that type of thing was to be expected. The band here, considered to be the consummate Rainbow line-up, includes Cozy Powell, Jimmy Bain and Tony Carey which was the line-up for the Rising album. There's a lengthy version of "Man on the Silver Mountain" included and obviously with the recent death of singer Ronnie James Dio fans who want to get everything they can featuring Dio will need to pick up this recording. It seems that the spotlight is, rightfully so, one minute on Dio and one minute on Blackmore but set closer "Do You Close Your Eyes" is very much a full band effort where Carey on organ and Powell and Bain as the rhythm section get a little more love from the soundman, turned up loud, and that's how you'll want to play this whole album. Rainbow - Live in Germany 1976 More articles for this artist .
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