Nice one Ritchie - Rainbow at the NEC in Birmingham

MTM, our mate Steve and I were very lucky to get great seats to go see Ritchie Blackmore playing some Rainbow and Deep Purple numbers at the Genting Arena at the NEC in Birmingham on Saturday night. We were in Block A and about 20 rows from the front.

This is just a screengrab from some YouTube footage, taken when they were playing Burn, which is my all time favourite Deep Purple track. Before they played the UK, they did two gigs at open air festivals in Germany. Burn was actually missing from the set list on those gigs so I was desperately grateful they decided to treat the UK to it. I think Soldier of Fortune was also a UK only track. I have this dream that one day, when playing Soldier of Fortune either with the reconstituted Rainbow or Blackmore's Night, David Coverdale will walk on stage and take over the vocals ... c'mon David, you're friends with Ritchie again now, you know you want to ...!

My second favourite Deep Purple track is Mistreated, a complex song, slow and bluesy and needs a really good singer. Ronnie Romero is the dynamic young singer Ritchie Blackmore chose to front the new line up, This guy shoved a stick of dynamite in his vocal chords and just exploded at us ... what a talent! Ritchie always has a knack of choosing really great singers and Ronnie is no exception. Nice one Ritchie!

There were too many highlights to mention them all but Stargazer was a wall of sound, the keyboard player was amazing on Burn and Child in Time, in the absence of John Lord, wow! he'll do!

The drummer, base player (Bob with his natty black and white polka dot shirt) and the keyboard player have all been in Ritchie's other band, Blackmore's Night, at various times and all are exceptional musicians.

This was definitely gig of the year in my book by a long chalk. I don't want Ritchie to stop doing Blackmore's Night but I, for one, won't be complaining if they decide to do an album and tour some more.

Long Live Rock 'n Roll!