Rainbow Rising again at the NEC Birmingham

Tickets for this concert when they first went up for sale were like Gold dust and sold out in seconds. Fortunately I was able to obtain one on a resale site at a vastly inflated 3 figure sum. Saturgay 25th June saw me at the Birmingham Genting Arena at the NEC. You could tell it was a sell out as masses of people everywhere. The merchandise stall we had to scrum for some 20 minutes but I did eventually get my tee shirt. My seat was about 1/3 of the way back on what might have been a former standing area. At 9.40pm, land of hope and glory started, the the familiar sounds of Judy Garland from the Wizard of Oz and "being over the rainbow, rainbow, rainbow ..."and we were straight into Deep P{purple's "Highway Star". The 71 year old Ritchie Blackmore played a blinder, his first rock concert in the UK for 19 years. he'd obviously relearnt all the solos and played well if a little slower than when he was on in his prime. There were many highlights, my favourites were "Catch the Rainbow", "Man on the Silver Mountain" and a majestic "Stargazer", unsurprisingly all from classic Dio-era rainbow. The singer Ronnie Romero, originally from Chile was a revelation, a great find and his rasping vocal delivery did justice to all the songs. As Ritchie said "truly a cross between Ronnie Dio and Freddie Mercury". Jens Johansson on Keyboards was good but the rhythm section of Bob Curiano and David Keith (both former/ current members of Blackmore's Night) were OK but could have been a lot tighter. They finished off with a majestic Burn and then the obligatory 'Smoke'.