Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
classic rock classic concert, September 4, 2006
For the most part this is a concert that rivals anything else now available from the 70's. Great vocals and great playing are heard throughout. It is a short set list however and all songs are stretched out with solos. This works well enough until you get to the drum solo in Still I'm Sad. Under the "it seemed like a good idea at the time" category you can hear Cozy play along to a tape of Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture finale. Unbelievable is the best you can say about that. But the only real miscue is Blackmore's little psycho/ego drama after the show is over and he's left on stage alone. Seriously, what does guitar smashing have to do with anything? But otherwise this is a great show and we already see glimpses of his future musical direction when he plays Greensleeves and bits of Bach, Beethoven and Gounod.
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36 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I See A Rainbow Rising, September 19, 2006
Man, I remember seeing Rainbow circa 1977 at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ. I refer fondly to that period of time in my life as "My Dark Years", but due to certain circumstances my memories of that time are...well..a bit dark. So what a delight it was to see the release of Rainbow Live in Munich to be able to experience the show on DVD with a clear head. The problem is that the awesome performances on this disk are footage from 1977, so the video quality is 1977 video...and that ain't too good.
Often times there are real reminders that the video is dated because of horizontal lines across the picture and just plain old low quality video. The experience is reduced to a mere DVD viewing after enjoying what was more of a front row seat experience with the quality HD video on some recent releases {i.e. Judas Priest (Rising in the East), Iron Maiden (Rock in Rio), Dio (Holy Diver Live) and even Rock the Nation by Kiss}.
The audio on Live in Munich is a completely different story. The audio wizards took the soundtrack to the show on this disk, cleaned it up and they've offered it with a terrific 5.1 Dolby or DTS mix. I thought the DTS repro sounded the best on my system.
Regardless of the horrible video, it was great to reminisce and watch as singer Ronnie James Dio, legend Ritchie Blackmore, inspirational Heavy Metal drummer Cozy Powell, Bob Daisley (Bass) and David Stone (Keys) went through some of the classics from Rainbow's first three releases.
What's really sad is that Rainbow could have done this concert with a lot more than 8 songs. Ritchie Blackmore's infatuation with himself prevented that. In almost every song except the first, Blackmore self-indulges in out-of-place guitar solos that are difficult to sit through. I'm not talking about the bridge guitar solos that are on the studio releases; I'm talking about random intros or interruptions in each song to deliver a monotonous, rambling, wee-da-la-wee-da-la of the six-string. Instead of the guitar monotony, great tunes that fans really wanted to hear (like Tarot Woman, Stargazer, etc) could have been included. Just look at the guitar-solo-excessive times on these songs....They give you:
1) Kill the King 4:42
2) Mistreated 11:49
3) Sixteenth Century Greensleeves 8:52
4) Catch the Rainbow 18:14
5) Long Live Rock and Roll 8:04
6) Man on the Silver Mountain 16:25
7) Still I'm Sad 27:33
8) Do You Close Your Eyes 15:40
Plus a Bonus disk with videos of LLRR, Gates of Babylon and LA Connection.
But all in all, if you were a Dio-years Rainbow fan don't pass on this. Just be sure that your expectations are set for a view into the past with the past's video quality. The performances are 4 stars, the reproduced sound is 4 stars and the video quality is 1 star.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Blackmore & Company Smoke In Munich!, June 19, 2006
Recorded in Munich, Germany in 1977, Rainbow already had a strong following (gaining superstar status in Japan) mostly due to the fact the band's leader and lead guitarist Ritchie Blackmore had stunned audiences in the past during his tenure in Deep Purple with his soaring guitar solos. With a relatively unknown singer named Ronnie James Dio (originally with the band Elf) on vocals and an impressive list of band members including drummer the late Cozy Powell, Bob Daisley on bass and David Stone on keyboards Rainbow was destined to be huge. Just one listen to these two "live" discs will remove any doubt that the band was one to be reckoned with. The energy Rainbow possessed with their brand of hard rock on "Live In Munich 1977" can easily be compared to Deep Purple's "Live In Japan" album. The songs speak for themselves with a number of them being two to three times the length of their original studio versions allowing Blackmore to improvise on his guitar solos which are incredible. The sound quality of these discs are excellent and Eagle Rock Entertainment has done a good job remastering these discs giving one the feeling he or she is actually in the audience. Four of the songs included are from Rainbow's debut titled "Blackmore's Rainbow" ("Man On The Silver Mountain", "Sixteenth Century Greensleeves", "Still I'm Sad", "Catch The Rainbow"). One from Rainbow's second album "Rainbow Rising" ("Do You Close Your Eyes") and two from the third album "Long Live Rock N' Roll" ("Long Live Rock N' Roll" and "Kill The King") and "Mistreated" from Deep Purple's "Burn" album. An excellent two disc "live" set that all Deep Purple and Rainbow fans will want in their collection.
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