Label: earMusic/Edel 2021
Review by: Urban "Wally" Wallstrom
What to expect from a Sunderland musician who once wrote an instrumental piece entitled 'Dark Side of the Moog'? Many pink moons ago tho' and at The Colosseum together with the late and great Gary Moore (RIP). Don's career has been very much fueled by the Irishman as they started playing/working together in 74/75 when they joined Jon Hiseman's highly influential jazz/rock band Colosseum II. They made three albums and Airey would continue to play on six studio solo albums by Gary between the years of 1978-1990. It make sense to kick off this double digipak edition of Don's first live album "Live In Hamburg" with the powerful version of "Nuclear Attack". One of several songs which Moore wrote about the 'cold war situation' and the potential disaster.
Airey is of course the keyboard player of Deep Purple since 2002, after the retirement of founding member Jon Lord (RIP). One of Airey heroes and there's been a "Purple" connection ever since Don joined Rainbow in 1979 and played on Down To Earth (1979) and Difficult To Cure (1981). This show recorded in 2017 during the club tour of his solo album "One Of A Kind" is a selection of Don's favourite songs from his unique career. A "Hard Rock songbook", played live by a band including the current singer from Nazareth, Carl Sentance (Krokus, Persian Risk) and the guitar rising star Simon McBride who will release his new solo album on earMUSIC in 2021.
Plenty of Rainbow tracks such as Difficult to Cure, All Night Long, Lost in Hollywood, as well as Russ Ballard's Rainbow hits of Since You've Been Gone and I Surrender. Nothing from short stints at Black Sabbath or the MSG debut and that's no surprise really. The biggest surprise and disappointment is however the complete lack of Ozzy 'The Prince of fookin Darkness' Osbourne. Blimey. Airey's keyboards were essential to the early Ozzy stuff and I love the sinister sound of the entire Bark At The Moon album. There's clearly bad blood considering all the Ozzy/Sharon stories and lack of royalties and removal of credits, etc. etc. Oddly enough. There's a Whitesnake number from his guest appearance at 1987 and I dig the subtile/sarcastic and dry introduction of "Is This Love" as Sentance mumbles 'Here's a song for you' without a hint of trying to copy or mimic the posh Coverdale accent.
Sentance, the very confident singer ever since Persian Risk in the early 80s and he's especially good on the Rainbow and Gary Moore material even if "Still Got The Blues" is merely the second rate version of "Parisienne Walkways". It's a bit more difficult to see him upfront at Purple as they also cover Pictures of Home, Child in Time, Hush, and Black Night. Not poor at all though and you'll also find Don Airey solo stuff (originally sung and co-written by Sentance) such as Shooting Star and Lost Boys. McBride play through all the guitar parts with ease and what can you type down about Airey that hasn't already been written? It's hard out there for an ardent Sunderland A.F.C. fan as they now play in League One, the third tier of English football. No longer the days of Kevin Phillips winning the European Golden Shoe, but hey, at least they have a Captain with the cool name of: Max Power. Final Verdict: Honest and "raw" live recording without the usual overdubs. donairey.com
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