25-06-05

Another great tribute band at The Springhead on Saturday night, Rainbow Rising may not look too much like any of the line-ups of Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow but the sound is very authentic… bearing in mind that this is a tribute, not a replicant.

Lead singer Raggie copes very well covering the voices of Dio, Joe Lynn Turner, Gillan and Graham Bonnet. On Drums is Mick  (Mr Rock n Roll) who according to their website thought Cozy Powell was God.. and why not?

Bassman Tony gets teased mercilessly about his likeness to Ronnie James Dio, despite all this, he lays down an excellent bassline. On Keyboards is Tor who originally was a huge Jon Lord fan, then progressing to the style of Tony Carey his keyboard playing is outstanding, on the occasional solo and especially his interplay with the guitar work of Barry, the Blackmore Lead guitarist, who, it has to be said was simply outstanding! Although the wig really did nothing for him :)

I Didn’t make a note of the setlist, although Rainbow Rising covered certainly the majority of the better known songs and played for a solid 2 hours cajoling the small but enthusiastic audience into singing along on several numbers, where we murdered man on a silver mountain but fared a bit better on since you’ve been gone. The highlight of the evening to me though was the first encore song, Difficult to cure which brought back fabulous memories of seeing RB play it at Knebworth in 85 with Deep Purple. 

For any Rainbow fan, these guys are the nearest you will get to the original band, they perform with humour and don’t take themselves too seriously, although their claim on their website of looking like them is stretching the imagination a tad too far!