Perhaps the best show of the tour. Ritchie's guitar has been boosted up to make it properly audible throughout. Dio is in great form, the group now seems a group rather than a collection of individuals. 'Catch The Rainbow' was bloody amazing, holding the audience spellbound in its entirety. It sent shivers through me. Some people just collapsed into their seats with disbelief. When he returned for the encore he was nearly pulled into the audience by an over-enthusiastic front row, and fell over trying to escape.

The Orange Festival in France was stopped by residents, so Rainbow's pre-UK warm-up didn't take place. The band fitted in a rehearsal before the opening show of the tour, including a full length version of 'Lazy'. Melody Maker printed a nasty review of the actual gig (in Bristol), maybe the reviewer's memories of a lager shampoo at a Purple gig swayed his critical judgement! Coverdale, Lord, Paice and Glover all attended the second night at Hammersmith. At one concert in France, Blackmore and Powell swopped instruments for a while, so that Ritchie could have a go on drums. They swopped back again when the crowd nearly rioted! A live album is being recorded on the European dates in October / November. Rainbow will be in Australia in early November, and Japan in December.

Gillan's band have been conspicuous by their absence recently. Disappointing LP sales, together with very poor ticket sales for his French Tour (Paris was nearly cancelled due to low sales), may have prompted Ian to rethink his immediate future. He's been touring America for some time now, UK dates seem no nearer.

While Rainbow were hunting a keyboard player in August 1975, one of the guys on the short-list was Eddie Jobson, one time Curved Air (and Roxy Music) whizz-kid. He did practise with the group but didn't take the job. He then returned to the UK to be offered work with the Ian Gillan Band...

Glover is still producing, he's just done Rory Gallagher's new one. He has also begun work on his own one, but it won't appear until late '77 he says. We could see Roger bopping away at the Hammersmith Rainbow gig. Ritchie did mention in Melody Maker something about getting Glover to help write some material for Rainbow, which could be interesting.