Rainbow – Birmingham Rising (Rising Arrow – 037)

Birmingham Rising (Rising Arrow – 037)

Birmingham Odeon, Birmingham, England – September 11th, 1976

Disc 1: Intro; Over The Rainbow; Kill The King; Mistreated; 16th Century Greensleeves; Catch The Rainbow

Disc 2: MC; Guitar Into., incl. Lazy; Man On The Silver Mountain; Blues; Vocal Improvisation; Man On The Silver Mountain (reprise); Stargazer; Still I’m Sad; Keyboard Solo; Drum Solo incl. 1812 Overture; Still I’m Sad (reprise); Do You Close Your Eyes incl. Guitar Crash

Considering the spate of excellent Rainbow titles released by various labels over the past few years, which appears to be continuing into the foreseeable future, this attractive looking release by Rising Arrow is a real head-scratcher.  The audience recording is largely overloaded, tinny, distant, and dominated by Blackmore’s guitar. 

For all intents and purposes, Cozy Powell’s drumming literally can’t be heard, except for the slower, quieter passages, and Dio’s similarly buried in the recording.  And forget about discerning how Bain or Carey were playing. 

To make matters worse, the noisy audience members close to the recorder get more than their fare share of air time in the recording, which destroys what is already a demanding listening experience.  The poor audio plagues both discs, making this a release one should completely avoid, particularly because there are so many other worthy titles available, and forthcoming, of other great Rainbow shows.