Ritchie Blackmore, Ronnie James Dio and Rainbow at full flight
I’ve recently reviewed the The Temple of the King 1975–1976 CD box set, which gathers together the early Rainbow story and includes the three German concerts from Cologne, Düsseldorf and Nürnberg. I’ve also reviewed the Cologne vinyl release, and now we arrive at the next instalment: Live in Düsseldorf 1976, presented here as a 3LP vinyl edition.
This concert was recorded at the Düsseldorf Philipshalle on 27 September 1976, during Rainbow’s first major world tour and at a point where the band were moving between the debut album, Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, and the mighty Rainbow Rising. That alone places it in a very special part of the Rainbow timeline.
The line-up is the one many fans regard as absolute magic: Ritchie Blackmore on guitar, Ronnie James Dio on vocals, Cozy Powell on drums, Jimmy Bain on bass and Tony Carey on keyboards. This was not just a band playing songs. This was a band stretching them, reshaping them, and turning the stage into Blackmore’s own musical landscape.
The Vinyl Package
This new 3LP edition is pressed on black vinyl. The previous Cologne release appeared on coloured vinyl, with a different colour for each disc, but this Düsseldorf edition keeps things simple and traditional. Personally, I’m absolutely fine with black vinyl, especially when the pressing is this good.
The sleeve features a colour picture of the band on the back, but this is not a gatefold package. The three records sit inside the outer sleeve in a more straightforward triple-vinyl format. The discs are labelled Part One, Part Two and Part Three, and the track listing is spread across the six sides.
The track listing is:
LP1
Side One: Kill the King / Mistreated
Side Two: Sixteenth Century Greensleeves
LP2
Side Three: Catch the Rainbow
Side Four: Man on the Silver Mountain
LP3
Side Five: Stargazer
Side Six: Still I’m Sad
This is one of those releases where several songs take up an entire side of vinyl, which really suits the scale and drama of this version of Rainbow. Catch the Rainbow, Man on the Silver Mountain, Stargazer and Still I’m Sad are not just performed here; they are explored.
The audio has been newly mastered by Andy Pearce and Matt Wortham, and the pressing on my copy is superb. As many of you know, I can be very picky with new vinyl, but I had no issues here. It plays cleanly, it sounds powerful, and it gives the music the space it needs.
Would I have liked polylined inner sleeves? Yes, absolutely. You know me by now. I would also have loved to see live photographs included, perhaps on printed inners or within a gatefold sleeve. When you think back to Rainbow On Stage, part of the joy was sitting with the record and absorbing those photographs while the music played. That tactile, visual element matters to vinyl collectors.
However, there may well be reasons for the more minimal presentation. Photography rights, licensing costs and the economics of pressing archive vinyl in smaller quantities all have to be considered. I understand that. But from a collector’s point of view, a few more images would have elevated the package.
CD Box Set or Vinyl?
This is where I always try to be honest with people. My job here is not to tell you to spend money you don’t have, or to buy something just because it exists.
If you already have the Temple of the King CD box set and you are happy with CD, then that set gives you these concerts sounding better than they have sounded before. It is a fantastic way to own this material.
But if you are a vinyl collector, and if having these legendary 1976 Rainbow concerts on LP means something to you, then this Düsseldorf set is absolutely worth considering. The Cologne vinyl sounded fantastic, and this one does too. There is a real sense of air, size and movement in the sound.
These are not just archive releases being pushed out for the sake of it. The mastering has made a difference, and the vinyl presentation gives the performances a different kind of physical presence.
The Performance
This is Ritchie Blackmore in one of his most inspired periods.
For me, the years between 1974 and 1976 captured Blackmore at a point where his tone, imagination and sense of freedom were absolutely extraordinary. There was nothing holding him back. There was no sense of someone telling him to shorten the solo, or to pull back, or to make room for another arrangement. This was his landscape.
And standing beside him was Ronnie James Dio, who seemed to understand exactly where Blackmore wanted to go. Dio was not just singing over these pieces; he was inhabiting them. His voice brings the fantasy, the drama and the emotional weight that made early Rainbow so unique.
Kill the King opens with real urgency and reminds you how exciting this band could be when they locked into something fast and direct. Mistreated gives Blackmore room to stretch out in that blues-drenched, expressive way that reaches back to Deep Purple but also feels very much part of Rainbow’s own identity.
Then you get pieces like Catch the Rainbow, which becomes something far more expansive than its studio version. These live versions have a hypnotic quality. They build slowly, patiently, with Blackmore pulling the music into different emotional spaces while Dio stays completely connected to the atmosphere.
Man on the Silver Mountain becomes a full-side journey, while Stargazer remains one of the great epic rock statements of the 1970s. Hearing it in this live setting, with Cozy Powell driving the whole thing forward, is genuinely thrilling. Still I’m Sad closes the set with the band once again pushing far beyond the structure of the original song.
It is also worth noting that this concert does not include Do You Close Your Eyes, which appears in some of the other 1976 shows. That means the Düsseldorf set is slightly shorter than the Nürnberg concert is likely to be if it follows. But what is here is powerful, focused and essential for fans of this period.
Sound Quality
The sound quality is excellent. These recordings have been around in different forms over the years, and many of us have owned various editions of this material. I remember buying the old Live in Germany set on Connoisseur Records and having problems with the vinyl back then. In fact, experiences like that were part of what pushed me towards CD at the time.
This new edition is a very different experience. The vinyl is quiet, the mastering has weight, and the band comes across with force and clarity. You can hear the power of Cozy Powell, the bite of Blackmore’s guitar, the richness of Dio’s voice and the way Tony Carey and Jimmy Bain help hold the whole thing together.
For anyone nervous about modern vinyl pressings, I can only speak from my own copy, but this one gave me confidence.
Live in Düsseldorf 1976 is another hugely welcome Rainbow vinyl release. It captures one of the greatest hard rock bands of the 1970s at a moment when everything seemed wide open.
Would I have liked a gatefold sleeve? Yes. Would I have liked more photographs and polylined inner sleeves? Definitely. Those things would have made the package feel more luxurious and more in keeping with the importance of the music.
But the most important thing is the sound, and the sound is fantastic.
If you are happy with the CD box set, you can keep your powder dry. But if you love Rainbow, if you love Ritchie Blackmore, and if these 1976 concerts mean something to you on vinyl, then this is a release you can approach with confidence.
For me, as someone who saw Rainbow in 1976 at Birmingham Odeon, this music takes me right back to that world. The drama, the mystery, the guitar tone, the voice of Ronnie James Dio, the thunder of Cozy Powell — it is all here.
This is Rainbow in full flight.
This is Düsseldorf, 27 September 1976.
And this is Ritchie Blackmore at the centre of his own universe.
Phil Aston | Nows Spinning Magazine
