Ritchie has a familiar name for the band: Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow , but any of the other gyus haven't played with RB until the new Rainbow album Stranger In Us All. The line-up in Helsinki was the same as on the album, exept the drummer. The old drummer is to return to band as soon he gets his hand healed, said Ritchie in an interview. The substitute did well in Helsinki anyway...even the solo was short enough :)
Spotlight Kid was the one to open the Rainbow's return on stages and it really smashed the audience. The 2nd song was Too Late For Tears from the new album. The 3rd, Long Live Rock'n Roll blew the concert hall and was one of the greatest parts of the gig. The band played lots of new material, which was ok. The new album includes many great songs and they sounded good in live, too. Especially Black Masquerade, Ariel and Wolf To The Moon deserve an extra mention here. Though, the old songs were the best ones, but the band did new material well with enthusiasm and energy. IMHO the best part of the gig was the first encore, a classic DP track Burn. The last song before encores was Hall Of The Mountain King.
The vocalist Doogie White was great, better than Turner ever. The beatiful vocal harmonies with the bass player (what was his name again) were very nice.
Maybe the worst part of the gig were the cracky and distorting keyboard sounds. Perfect Strangers didn't sound even close as magnificent as it did by Lord. Keyboard solos were ok, but the sounds were, methinks, just horrible. When not soloing, keyboards did just the thing they are supposed to do in Rainbow, which differs significantly from Deep Purple in the role of keyboards.
Rainbow played some two hours. The best parts of the gig were the beginning, 4-5 first songs, and the the last 20 mins. Doogie had the audience singing big time during Long Live Rock'n Roll. Ritchie did also some fine improvising only drums backing him up. He played - and the audience sung :) - Black Night -theme. Doogie and Ritchie went for "Gillan-Blackmore conversation" with R in guitar and D repeating the notes, but Ritchie seemed to got pissed off and they stopped pretty soon.
What about the Master himself then? Ritchie was outstanding, better than in
Helsinki with Deep Purple two years ago. The opening with Spotlight Kid
proved that the master hasn't lost his touch. Temple Of The King showed
Helsinki how guitar can be played with extremely richness without
crowding every bar with one milion tapped notes. He played great, improvised
solos and didn't look bored at all. Actually I personally saw him smiling half a dozen teeth visible
at least 5 times during the gig.
Yes, he's back!
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