Rainbow – Memories In Rock

Now while it is great to hear Ritchie dusting off these classics, and played to perfection by every member, they are slightly more passive versions than the originals. Blackmore is 71, and the bassist appears older as well. The original records of these Rainbow and Purple classics always had the keyboard and bass up in the mix more thus creating the hard rock sound, with Ritchie’s leads, and the riffs acting as a compliment, sometimes. So a song like ‘Spotlight Kid’ while has a more upbeat tempo, still Ritchie’s guitar doesn’t have much of a hard rock crunch. His leads are what really cut through the mix – see ‘Mistreated’ and ‘Catch The Rainbow’. Where do the riffs sound like riffs? – ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’ has a little more edge for the radio hit, a great shout out to Ronnie James Dio precedes ‘Man On The Silver Mountain’, the epic ‘Stargazer’, anthem ‘Long Live Rock n Roll’, and of course ‘Smoke On The Water’ – the song almost everyone who plays guitars learns from how to play a riff. Ritchie’s stage presence is often pretty removed from the band and crowd, in his own world focused on the music. But, at times he does come out from the smoke and shadows to the front of the stage and shows a little showmanship playing to the crowd. What are Ronnie’s interpretation like? – I got no complaints. He is smooth and graceful like Turner and Bonnet, soulful and a screamer (see ‘Child In Time’) like Gillan.

Its unfortunate Blackmore has no more interest in playing and making new hard rock, and would rather compose for his band Blackmore’s Night, but, at least we have this DVD/CD to enjoy some great memories in rock.