Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Venue: Estragon / Bologna / Italy
Concert date: 17.10.2009
Attendance: 800
Ticket price: €25.00
Over The Rainbow are one hell of a crew. It’s a veteran rock’n’roll company pulled together from different eras of the project led by the former Deep Purple guitarist, now a blissed-out Renaissance troubadour, Ritchie Blackmore. We’re talking about Rainbow, of course, the band that, with Ronnie James Dio, laid the foundations of raw hard rock and metal soaked in epic overtones, while its later incarnations with Graham Bonnet and finally Joe Lynn Turner spawned a handful of unforgettable AOR-flavored classics.
We die-hard worshippers of Deep Purple and its “extended family” can say with confidence that the idea behind Over The Rainbow comes first and foremost from Joe Lynn Turner. That’s the conclusion you’re pushed toward by Turner’s creative moves over the last fifteen-plus years, in which Joe has never really drifted far from nostalgic sighing over times gone by. First came Slaves and Masters with Deep Purple, then, when Rainbow was revived in 1994 and Doogie White was recruited, we got to “enjoy” Turner’s moaning display of dissatisfaction over the choice of vocalist, and his later collaborations with Glenn Hughes only confirmed that Joe Lynn Turner never actually got over the great love of his life – which, by some strange coincidence, is of course Ritchie Blackmore again. Sadly, Ritchie has long since not been “among the normal,” so Joe was forced to settle for a sort of “approximate copy,” none other than the brilliant guitarist’s son, the now 45-year-old Jurgen Blackmore. The rest was child’s play. Bobby Rondinelli (Rainbow drummer from 1980 to 1983) and Greg Smith (Rainbow bassist from 1994 to 1997) soon bit into the “rainbow” bait too. Only Tony Carey (Rainbow keyboardist from 1975 to 1977) proved difficult; he was replaced on tour by Paul Morris, who, like his buddy Greg Smith, spent the band’s final years in Rainbow (1994-1997).
After the too-late farewell from the annoying local openers Markonee, who are really a product of the typically Italian way of understanding the phenomenon of rock & roll, in this case glam rock above all, Over The Rainbow tore into a predictably fan-oriented set list that spent the evening picking flowers from practically every Rainbow era. First, Morris’s rather uninspired keyboard intro signaled the imminent arrival of “Tarot Woman,” which flowed without a break into the deadly onslaught of “Kill The King,” and both were followed by a radical thematic U-turn toward melodic rock with “Can’t Let You Go.” The venomous opening understandably fired up every available reserve of Turner’s vocal range, and he drove through the opening trio confidently, full throttle, with no reservation or hesitation. It has to be said that before every show, Turner faces one of the hardest vocal tasks of his career with the varied Rainbow repertoire, practically a mission impossible, which mercilessly demands making sense of singing songs of wildly different colors, originally written for vocal personalities that are fundamentally incompatible. With some relief we can say that the recognizable purity of Turner’s voice did, in the end, manage to tame these too, of course with generous help from heavily rearranged vocal lines and frequent use of shortcuts, which still couldn’t hide the unpleasant holes in the voice of Blackmore’s favorite vocalist.
A fully engaged Turner kept a tight bond with the crowd all night. There was no shortage of appeals in genuine Italian, of course, and the assembled throng answered them with enthusiasm. Turner is a real frontman, an excellent master of ceremonies with a sharp sense for steering the mood of the audience, so it was a real shame that the rest of the “rainbow” crew didn’t try too hard to keep up in terms of playing commitment. The rather timid musical section of the band indulged its improvisational ambitions only here and there, most obviously in “Death Alley Driver” and a truly excellent, stretched-out “Ariel.” Greg Smith, always broadly grinning and in a good mood, delivered solid playing with no highlights, and the traditionally excellent Rondinelli did his bit too, treating us, as expected, to his trademark solo, which the old drumming tomcat naturally nailed. By contrast, the out-of-sorts Paul Morris mostly justified his presence with an unexciting delivery of keyboard filler, while the biggest question mark of the night was the pleasantly plump figure of the Blackmore family heir, who may well nurture plenty of inherited musical talent, but at this point any comparison of Jurgen’s guitar playing to his father’s is blasphemous in every respect!
The Bologna visit confirmed what we expected: Over The Rainbow are better understood as a tribute band of more or less familiar names (with the understandable exception of Jurgen Blackmore), whose career peaks came precisely as the standard-bearers of one of the most prolific and attractive hard rock collectives in the history of rock music. Hence the strong whiff of nostalgia for a long-gone time, which we, the more mature music consumers, understandably gobbled up with great pleasure.
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
1. Tarot Woman 2. Kill The King 3. Can’t Let You Go 4. All Night Long 5. Death Alley Driver 6. Eye’s Of The World 7. Ariel 8. I Surrender 9. Man On The Silver Mountain 10. Jelaous Lover 11. Stargazer 12. Long Live Rock & Roll 13. Gates Of Babylon 14. Since You Been Gone 15. Can’t Happen Here
Photo Gallery
