Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow: Memories in Rock – Live in Germany Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow: Memories in Rock – Live in Germany Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 2, 2016

Maybe Ritchie Blackmore can let us in on what exactly intrigues him about Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance” (that march you hear at graduation ceremonies all the time), since (along with being quoted in some Deep Purple tunes) it shows up here as “underscore” as the band walks onstage. A little more understandable is an audio clip from The Wizard of Oz, with Judy Garland opining that “we’re not in Kansas anymore,” along with a little nod to being over the rainbow, which leads to a quick fuzz guitar quote of the immortal song from that film. It’s a little bit of a whimsical introduction to what was a celebrated return to stage for Blackmore, who kind of strangely seems to be part of the “backup band” at times during this concert, standing off to the side and letting Rainbow vocalist Ronnie Romero bask in the limelight. The concert is generally high energy, but there are a few technical issues some fans may want to be aware of.

The band's set list, culled from two performances in Germany, includes the following songs:

Highway Star
Spotlight Kid
Mistreated
16th Century Greensleeves
Since You Been Gone
Man on the Silver Mountain
Catch the Rainbow
Difficult to Cure (Beethoven's Ninth)
Perfect Strangers
Stargazer
Long Live Rock 'n' Roll
Child in Time / Woman From Tokyo
Black Night
Smoke on the Water

Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow: Memories in Rock – Live in Germany Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow: Memories in Rock - Live in Germany is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision, an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment, and Universal Music Group with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. While there's nothing here that will seriously disappoint videophiles, this is not the sharpest looking concert offering Eagle Rock has released. Some of the aerial shots almost look upscaled (perhaps they were shot with low res drones), but even wide shots here are often not especially strong on detail. A slight purplish lighting scheme tends to make blacks look a little milky (even if they "really" aren't), though detail pops decently in close-ups.

Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow: Memories in Rock – Live in Germany Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow: Memories in Rock - Live in Germany features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 mixes. While the basic fidelity of both of these mixes is fine, amplitude seems weirdly tamped down, to the point that I had to turn my receiver up several notches past where I usually do to fully enjoy the sonics (I popped this disc in directly after another Eagle Rock release, Heart: Live at The Royal Albert Hall with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the difference in amplitude was noticeable). That said, if you do crank your volume "up to 11", the surround mix offers good reproduction across all frequency ranges. There's a bit too much "audience participation" to my liking (did we really need to hear several thousand people attempt to sing "Smoke on the Water"?), but prioritization is generally very well handled.

Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow: Memories in Rock – Live in Germany Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Bonus Tracks

  Spotlight Kid (1080i; 5:35)

  Man on the Silver Mountain (1080i; 5:54)

  Long Live Rock 'n' Roll (1080i; 8:18)

  Stargazer (1080i; 9:15)

Additionally, the DigiPack comes with 2 CDs featuring all the songs on the Blu-ray. There's also an insert booklet with a career retrospective by Don Lawson.

Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow: Memories in Rock – Live in Germany Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Maybe it was just the build up and anticipation of seeing Blackmore "live" again, but this concert felt just a little bit lethargic, despite good playing by the band and respectably over the top vocals by Romero. Blackmore fans will almost certainly want to pick this up, though, even if there are some niggling technical concerns in both the video and audio departments. With caveats noted, Recommended.