Exciting introduction, boring elaboration

I give this album three stars because it's still Rainbow, but this record is week, indeed. You'll be excited with the funny introduction featuring a playback of Dorothy saying "We must be over the rainbow", ripped off The Wizard Of Oz.



The band's energy and sounding is pretty good and everything goes very well until they start to jam way too much, up to the point when it gets really really boring, sometimes you'll be able to hear even more silence than any sound at all.



Still worthy, but definitely not for starters. Don't make this one your first Rainbow record and then start going around and saying that you hate the band, try a real studio album first. And if you already have all of the Dio era studio albums and just want another Rainbow record, get Stranger In Us All before this one, it's surely the best Rainbow album without Dio.

To A Misled US Reviewer

Just A note for the somewhat misguied US reviewer. While this album (CD these days) was released after Rainbow 'Rising', it came from the tour for the 'Rising' LP. It was definately prior to the release of 'Long Live Rock 'n' Roll'. The LP was originally to be a Japan only release, but bootleggers had already started taping all of the shows on the '76 Tour. It was released worldwide in an effort to "Beat the boots". Other boots of this tour have mostly the same track listing as 'On Stage', but occasionally have more or less 'Rising' tracks on them, depending on which leg of the tour they were on. You also must remember that these years were also the "jam-happy" years at concerts. Deep Purple songs were also kept in for fans of that Blackmore era of Purple. If you want a far more representative album of the tour try "Live In Germany '76", which I tend to enjoy better than this LP(CD)... and they probably were smoking something!

Took me almost 30 years but....

I'll keep it short. I was a Rainbow fan before a Purple fan (my age is to blame). RISING, LONG LIVE ROCKnROLL, and even DOWN TO EARTH rank as great records years later, at least in my book. I ignored On Stage all those years; I heard it once and didn't appreciate it. Now, listening to it cranked LOUD, I realize this is an AMAZING record. The performance is white hot, and is best appreciated in context: LOUD!!! A great record.