The Live Album Section 1977
Rainbow On Stage 1977 (Polydor)
Heavy Metal
A rainbow served up on a platter made of metal.
In keeping with the need for a live album for prestige purposes, even though in Rainbow’s case it came a bit too early in their discography, Rainbow still wasted no time thanks to their commercial success in releasing a live double set.
On Stage was recorded over a series of live dates in both Germany and Japan for their ‘Rising World Tour’ in 1976 and covers all their essential material. The album starts off with the customary Rainbow show opener at the time "Toto: I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore. We must be over the rainbow!" and this is surely one of the few times, where this much used phrase has fitted aptly in place. The album then goes into “Kill the King” a song that hadn’t appeared on the band’s two previous studio albums and whilst non-album tracks were common fare on live albums, few were ever used to kick off an album, the track though would appear on their next album
Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll. The album then moves into the eleven minute medley of “Man on the Silver Mountain” and “Starstruck”. The rest of the album features lengthy versions of Rainbow essentials as “Catch the Rainbow” “Sixteenth Century Greensleeves” and an excellent choice in the Deep Purple song “Mistreated”. The guitar work of Ritchie Blackmore was seemingly more focused than ever and his proto-neo classical guitar work would be highly influential of future neo-classical guitar gods such as Randy Rhoads (then still in Quiet Riot) and Ynqwie Malmsteen. The album would also see the break-up of this lauded line-up, as bassist Jimmy Bain would be the first to depart. Producer Martin Birch was on board to give us a lengthy live album that was splattered over four sides of vinyl and it’s Martin Birch that was often the bone of contention for this live album. His production and most reviewers would agree, was that it was both flat and uninspired, but if the listener can take that aside, before them stands an excellent array of six songs that cover sixty four minutes on its original release. In fact there is an extended deluxe version of this live album that came out in 2012 and also the 1991 release of
Live in Germany is seen as a more complete live portrayal of the band at this time. Whilst this might not be in the top twenty best live albums of the decade, it’s still a creditable live album from one of the most important bands of their time.
Dio- Vocals
Ritchie Blackmore- Guitar
Jimmy Bain- Bass
Tony Carey- Keyboards
Cozy Powell- Drums
Production- Martin Birch
Germany and Japan 1976