Description
Taffs And Toffs features Rainbow live from the 14th of September 1983 when the band played the first of two nights at Cardiff’s St David’s Hall, with former Runaways guitarist Lita Ford as support on their Bent Out Of Shape Tour. Bent Out of Shape was the seventh studio album and it was recorded at Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen in about 7 weeks. This would be the bands final studio album before their twelve-year hiatus from the studio. It also proved to be the band’s final studio album with vocalist Joe Lynn Turner, bassist Roger Glover and keyboardist David Rosenthal, and their only one to feature drummer Chuck Burgi, who replaced Bobby Rondinelli just prior to the album’s recording sessions. The instrumental Snowman is based upon Walking In The Air, a song written by Howard Blake for the 1982 animated film The Snowman based on Raymond Briggs 1978 children’s book of the same name. There are also other rarities that you wont find on the official live Rainbow albums, like Stranded, Fool For The Night, Drinking With The Devil and Death Alley Driver. Needless to say that Blackmore is smoking, ecstatic and flies with his playing being awesome and dirty as it’s raw and untouched from any studio treatments. The maestro is in a great mood giving an amazing performance with his 6 strings. He changes the solo in the songs, he throws in some shots of Purple songs like Lazy, Woman From Tokyo, Smoke On The Water, as well as Hendrix’s Hey Joe. Chuck Burgi and David Rosenthal on drums and keyboards respectively are awesome, and so is Joe, although he butchered Stargazer. The setlist and his way of singing proves why the master chose to rely on him as he was spinning his last dice pursuing the band’s commercial establishment. As a matter of fact, that was also the reason for the female backing vocals (Lin Robinson, Dee Baele) that gave Rainbow songs a new dimension. The album manages to capture the tension, the passion, the energy and the undisputed talented of that line-up.
Track list:
1. Over The Rainbow
2. Spotlight Kid
3. Miss Mistreated
4. Fool For The Night
5. I Surrender-Russ Ballard cover
6. Can’t Happen Here
7. Catch The Rainbow
8. Lazy
9. Drinking With The Devil
10. Difficult To Cure
11. Power
12. Blues
13. Stargazer
14. Stranded
15. Death Alley Driver
16. Rule Britannia
17. All Night Long
18. Vielleicht Das Nachster Zeit (Maybe Next Time)
19. Since You Been GoneRuss Ballard cover
20. Woman From Tokyo
21. Smoke On The Water
22. Hey Joe
23. Long Live Rock n Roll