RISES OVER JAPAN

Rises Over Japan is the video of the live album, Last Concert in Japan, however Rises Over Japan omits 5 tracks from the live album, leaving the video short in length, and overall weak in track-selection, and better let's not talk about the track-order!!.

Having in mind that this was filmed in the 70's, clearly the visuals aren't excellent, neither the sound. However, it's pretty worthwhile, watching Tommy Bolin, Jon Lord, Hughes, Coverdale and Paice rockin' back then in Japan.

Now, as I mentioned before, the track-selection is pretty weak, but the real issue is the record company's order selection, I mean, to start the video with Smoke on the Water and end up with Highway Star!! You can't start with a tune like Smoke on the Water, however the perfomance of it, is quite different to the classic version with Ian Gillan, it's a bit more speed-up and vocal duties split to Glenn and David. It's not really a killer version of it, but it's a quite powerful version I must say. Though as you may know, MK 3/4 was never good performing songs from MK 2. So you can expect a weak version of Highway Star too.

However the 3 other tracks, which are MK 3/4 songs, are pretty well done, and like I said earlier, it's nice to see the band doing these songs. With You Keep on Moving you have the always killer duo-vocal delivery, with Burn the killer hammond-organ, and with Love Child the great funky moog-solo. Though, really nothing new from the studio-versions.

So, having 2 weak performed MK 2 tracks, a awfull order-selection of the songs, and the songs from this line-up being performed equally as in the studio version, I really can't recomend this video, except for the presence of Tommy Bolin, though as you know, this concert was his worst, due to injecting heroin in his left arm, not letting him play well.

2 stars, for fans and collectors like me.