Live In Germany

Joe Lynn Turner has enjoyed a very successful career ever since his time with Rainbow in the early 80’s. Albums like Difficult To Cure, Straight Between The Eyes and Bent Out Of Shape were huge commercial successes with a string of hit singles that saw extensive FM radio airplay. Besides a brief stint with Yngwie Malmsteen in the late mid 80’s for the Odyssey album, Joe has released 9 studio albums and even filling in for Ian Gillan on the Deep Purple album Slaves and Masters. Despite Joe’s vast repertoire of material, Live in Germany is his very first live album. Recorded in Sept. 2007 at the United Forces of Rock Festival in Ludwigsburg Germany without the band’s prior knowledge, the results were impressive enough that it was agreed to release it.

At the time, Joe’s band consisted of Karl Cochran (guitar), Greg Smith (bass), Michael Sorrentio (drums) and Carmine Giglio (keyboards). The sound of this live album is really solid yet Joe’s vocals are a little too strong in the mix. With a rather subdued and hard to hear crowd, this has all the characteristics of a soundboard recording. Relying very heavily on Rainbow tracks from the Joe Lynn Turner era, the band rips through a rousing 73 minute set including many Rainbow classics such as I Surrender, Can’t Happen Here and Spotlight Kid from Difficult To Cure as well as the show opener Death Alley Driver, Power and Stone Cold from Straight Between The Eyes and Street Of Dreams and Can’t Let You Go from Bent Out Of Shape. A great addition is the very first Turner/Blackmore composition Jealous Lover, released on an EP just prior to the Difficult To Cure album. Tracks from Joe’s solo career include Power of Love from The Usual Suspects and Your Love Is Life and Blood Red Sky from 2007’s Second Hand Life. A curious addition of Deep Purple’s Burn might leave a few scratching their heads yet the band pulls it off quite nicely.

Time really hasn’t affected Joe’s voice as he’s still in fine form. The band sounds tight and all the songs remain true to the original arrangements. I really wish he had included more solo material as out of a set of 13 songs, 9 are Rainbow tracks, one is a Deep Purple cover; leaving only three songs from his solo career. Think of this album as a Joe Lynn Turner/Rainbow greatest hits live package. Joe recently started a new project entitled Over The Rainbow and includes members from just about every era of Rainbow as well as Ritchie Blackmore’s son JR on guitar. They are currently on tour and based on the material that has been making up the bulk of Joe’s live show in recent years, it really won’t mean much of a change in the set list.