The Graham Bonnet Band: The Think Tank, Newcastle

FAMOUSLY Ritchie Blackmore filled the gaping hole left in Rainbow, following the departure of Ronnie James Dio, with Only One Woman singer Graham Bonnet.

Although he only recorded Down To Earth, an album that yielded two huge hits Since You Been Gone and All Night Long, it gave Bonnet the platform for a career that would stretch another 35 years taking in the Michael Schenker Group, his own band Alcatrazz, Blackthorne and many others.

In January Bonnet's set featured a career spanning, crowd pleasing set of classics. This time Bonnet has a new album, The Book, to showcase. Bonnet's strength and bite was highlighted with set-opener and gold-plated Rainbow classic Eyes of the World and again in the moody slow building Blues bruiser, Love's No Friend, a last-second entry into the set that left bassist Beth-Ami Heavenstone a touch baffled much to Bonnet's amusement. Bonnet has worked with some guitar greats over the years including Blackmore, Michael Schenker, Neo-Classical maestro Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Vai so Bonnet needed a foil to cope with the demands of those legendary players and Conrado Pesinato certainly did justice to the demanding originals.

His three Top Ten singles, solo single Night Games being the third, kept the more casual fans happy but it was the vintage cuts like Lost In Hollywood that brought the biggest cheers.

Things may have been fairly quiet on the recording front recently but with Bonnet's new album, The Book, along with a classy new band, this may just be the start of an exciting new chapter.

Mick Burgess