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Last time we gotta see a concert by Purple Rainbow is over a year ago. In the mean time they got a new keyboardplayer and drummer. A few months ago there were some stories that they were lookin' for a new singer too. Luckily enough vocalist Sabine van der Loos changed her mind and decided to stay in the band. The rest of the line up is Mario Roelofsen (Guitar), Menno Hamer (Bass), Alexander de Goede (Drums) and Jorrit van der Weide (Keyboards).  The concert was in The Rambler, a pretty nice & cozy rock pub in Eindhoven. The band did like we're used from them 2 sets of an hour each. What a relief compared to so many up and coming new bands these days who play a 45 minute set when they are headliner. Purple Rainbow gives you value for money, not only in playtime but also in quality. They have improved even quite a bit from the last time we saw them. The new members did put their mark on the total sound in a very fine way.  The band kicked off after the intro with "Black Night" and "Into the Fire" before they got into the first Rainbow track "Man On The Silver Mountain". Good version! The band had some sound problems on stage, especially with the monitors. They tried to solve it by communicating with the soundman while they just kept playing on. Mario joked afterwards that the man deserved a glass of water (referring to the Birmingham 1993 incident as can been seen on the "Come Hell or High Water" DVD by Deep Purple). The first set included for the rest all Deep Purple songs including fine versions of "Hush", "Space Truckin'", "Demon's Eye" and "Fireball". They slowed down a bit with the ballad "When A Blind Man Cries", before ending the first hour with the rockin' "Stormbringer" and a stunning version of "Mistreated". Very good guitarwork by Mario and great vocals by Sabine in this one. She fully deserved and possibly needed the half hour break after this powerfull effort. The second set brought us some more Rainbow songs. They kicked off with "Perfect Strangers" and then we got "Kill The King". Blistering version with great drumwork by Alexander. He also got the spotlight in the next song "Pictures of Home" together with bassplayer Menno. Another highlight of the night. Purple Rainbow always does "Still I'm Sad" as an instrumental. Excellent musicianship with some great keyboardwork by Jorrit on his Hammond.  During the second set the audience got more and more enthousiastic and they were rewarded with more good Purple stuff including "Speed King" and "Highway Star". Highlight of the evening however was an superb version of "Gates Of Babylon". Good intro by Jorrit. Mario played this Rainbow classic like TMIB himself in his best days and Sabine again added some strong and powerfull vocals. The gig ended with a rockin' version of "Burn" after they'd done the Purple classic of all classics "Child in Time". Despite one punter kept screaming for "Lady Starstruck" for the last half an hour he and the rest of the audience got an encore of "Smoke on the Water". 
All we can say it was just a great show for a small audience of only 50-60 people. There was an excellent atmosphere in The Rambler, the band played despite the soundproblems very well. And the audience enjoyed it! Especially the second set the band peaked. Alexander de Goede is a great powerfull drummer. His predecessor had more of a kinda Ian Paice feel & style, Alexander however is a drummer in the style of the great Cozy Powell. Together with Menno Hamer on bass this is the rhythm backbone of the band now. And Jorrit van der Weide produced an excellent wide organ sound out of his Hammond XK-1 over it. Mario handled all the guitar parts really well and fired some great Blackmoresque solo's into the audience. And to top it all there's Sabine, the female singer with a superb throat.You most likely won't see Ritchie get his rockin' boots out of the dust anymore. So if you wanna go to a trip down memory lane you've got to go and see one of the many tribute bands that are around. There are some excellent tributes around. Rainbow Rising from the UK is one of them. Purple Rainbow in the Netherlands is another one. Just don't go and compare them to the original. It just don't make any sense. You can see Purple Rainbow on July 11 on DemeRRock in Hoeselt, Belgium. In September they play Enschede in The Netherlands on the 12th and the All American Weekend Festival in Lommel, Belgium on the 20th. |
