Rare Dio-Era Rainbow Videos

To get your three-day weekend started off in style (or if you are not the U.S., your 2-day weekend), dig these killer Dio-era Rainbow videos, posted by Rainbow bassist Bob Daisley himself.

The back story, as according to Blabbermouth.net:

Bassist Bob Daisley, who was a member of Rainbow from 1977 to 1979, has posted high-quality video footage of the band performing the songs "Gates of Babylon," "Long Live Rock 'N' Roll" and "L.A. Connection" at a New York studio prior to the release of the band's third studio album, 1978's "Long Live Rock 'N' Roll." 

Although Bob Daisley and David Stone are listed on the "Long Live Rock 'N' Roll" credits for their contributions, they joined Rainbow after the recording sessions had already commenced and only appear on a couple of tracks. Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore played most of the bass parts himself for the album.

They are pretty obviously miming along but the vocals are for sure different from the record so maybe those were live. Regardless, these are pretty cool. Enjoy:

Gates of Babylon


Long Live Rock N Roll


LA Connection

Rainbow Reunion of Sorts

I have been meaning to post about this for a long time. A number of ex-members of Rainbow have gathered and are on tour as "Over the Rainbow." One notable absence is founding guitarist Ritchie Blackmore who has been performing Renaissance Faire music the last bunch of years for whatever reason.

But here is the lineup:

Joe Lynn Turner (Rainbow 1980-1984) - Vocals
Tony Carey (Rainbow 1975-1978) - Keyboards
Bobby Rondinelli (Rainbow 1980-1983) - Drums
Greg Smith (Rainbow 1994-1997) - Bass
Jürgen "J.R." Blackmore - Guitar

Yep, that is Ritchie's son on guitar.

Keyboardist Carey posted a blog entry after the band's recent Russian debut:

We rehearsed like madmen for several days in a Moscow studio — J.R. and I had pre-rehearsed at my house in Germany and Bobby and Greg in New York. After the first 10 minutes, it was pretty clear that when we didn't suck; we were pretty good. The tricky part is playing balls-out, take-no prisoners, and still being (reasonably) accurate. If you start thinking about what you're playing, you're automatically using a safety net...

First couple of shows had great moments and some fairly dodgy ones, as well. What surprised me was the turnout and the excitement level coming back to the stage.

The last four gigs were light-years better. Everybody had sort of figured out how they wanted to play the songs (this doesn't include Greg and Bobby, they had it cold from the beginning, for which they've both earned my eternal emnity).

I think Joe's doing a great job on songs he'd never sung before, great frontman, and Jürgen — well, I knew he was good going in, but he's killer and growing with each performance. And yes, he IS a Blackmore.

Here is a clip of the band doing the Dio-era tune Stargazer. It sounds pretty epic if you ask me: