At The Vault On May 9th, 2025

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All Photos By George Dionne/@therockisgeorge

Heading over to see the GRAHAM BONNET BAND at The Vault in New Bedford, MA on Friday May 9th, 2025, both my fellow KNAC.COM compatriot George Dionne and I had to deal with some pretty rainy weather.

But those raindrops that kept falling on our heads mattered very little once GRAHAM BONNET and the rest of his solo band took to the stage.

After an 8-song set from openers CRYSTAL FOGG and a short intermission, Bonnet and his cohort ripped it up from the start with a strong focus on the RAINBOW material the singer recorded for the group's 1979 album Down To Earth.

In fact the first five songs all came from that album. It wasn't a surprise per se because I had seen posts about it being a RAINBOW-heavy set but I don't think I was expecting the majority of them right up front.

Still, one thing that extended run of tracks did was make me realize that I need to go back and give more of a listen to the Down to Earth album. While I do like all the versions of RAINBOW, my real focus on them has always been the albums with RONNIE JAMES DIO.

But as the GRAHAM BONNET BAND rocked the stage with the opening song "Eyes of The World", I was kind of blown away. Yes, I'd heard the songs before but seeing GRAHAM BONNET singing the track right there in front of me, something just clicked for me.

The same could be said for "All Night Long" which is another song that I've heard through the decades but it had a new vivaciousness to it as I was seeing it live. I had less significant memory of the song "Makin' Love" and "Love's No Friend" but in the case of the latter track, HOLY CRAP! Man, that song really made me sit up and take notice. Now, maybe my ears were playing tricks on me but as I listened, I thought there was a nice bluesy vibe running through the song at times and I was kind of amazed that I didn't remember that at all.

Capping off the five song opening run of RAINBOW songs was "Since You Been Gone", the song GRAHAM BONNET is likely most associated with. Okay, sure it was originally a song done by RUSS BALLARD, but Bonnet has recorded versions of the song with RAINBOW, ALCATRAZZ and IMPELLITTERI and kind of made it HIS signature song. In fact, the version he did with IMPELLITTERI is where I first remember knowingly hearing GRAHAM BONNET for the first time. Yes, I was a HUGE fan of that group's Stand in Line album. So getting to see Bonnet perform it live for the first time was quite a big thrill for me to say the least. And it was a powerful rendition at that!

Once the song came to an end, there was a keyboard solo from Mike Mangan that morphed into a bit of a cover of the DEEP PURPLE song "Lazy". It was the first of two what seemed planned instrumental breaks designed to give Bonnet a chance to rest for a few minutes. While I may be wrong about that, he is 77 years old so I certainly wouldn't begrudge him a respite in the set, regardless of how I feel about solos personally.

After the "break", the material started to vary a bit more with the GRAHAM BONNET BAND song "Imposter" doing a nice job of shining the spotlight on his current band. That was followed up by his solo track "S.O.S.", a song I'm not sure I remember ever hearing before but I did like it.

While Bonnet was pretty interactive from the stage, it was the lead-in into the MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP song "Desert Song" where he really indulged in some storytelling. Of course, it was the story about the time his penis came out of his pants onstage, which led to his firing from the group. I knew about the story but it was kind of cool to actually hear it straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

The weirdest part of the night was the story that Bonnet told as the intro to the song "Uncle John". I'm not going to relate the story here but if you've ever seen the GRAHAM BONNET BAND playing this song, you'll know what I'm talking about. It was just such an out of place story to me. I think George and I both looked at each other with a "WTF?" look on our faces.

Sandwiching those two songs was the solo track "Night Games" and another GRAHAM BONNET BAND song "Into The Night". Much like before, I found myself more familiar with the band track as opposed to the solo song. I guess I'm going to be going off on a musical odyssey to discover more of the stuff I haven't heard from Bonnet's discography. In between the two songs, Bonnet introduced the band which includes bassist (and tour manager) Beth-Ami Heavenstone and drummer Francis Cassol.

The main part of the set came to a close with the MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP track "Assault Attack". That was damn fine to hear in concert. I have the album that shares the song's title but man, I don't think I've listened to it in a long time.

After the briefest of breaks, the band came back on stage for the two song encore. And this is where I would tell you just how impressive guitarist Conrado Pesinato was on the night. Think about it, he had to be Ritchie Blackmore, Michael Schenker AND Yngwie Malmsteen all in one night. Not to mention every other guitarist that performed on the setlist's track listing. But he really did it seemingly effortlessly. I have only rave reviews to say about his performance throughout the night. But as the band raced through the ALCATRAZZ song "To Young to Die, Too Drunk to Live", it was just the final bit of fitting into place for me of just how good his playing was.

The GRAHAM BONNET BAND closed out the night in total with the RAINBOW track "Lost in Hollywood". Once again, a stellar rendition to highlight that singer GRAHAM BONNET is still rocking the stages all over the world. Along with his current band, he's bringing treasured musical memories to life all over again and doing it with power, style and rocking grace that will only whet your appetite for more!

Set List (NOTE: I'm leaving out the solos)

• "Eyes of the World" (RAINBOW)
• "All Night Long" (RAINBOW)
• "Love's No Friend" (RAINBOW)
• "Makin' Love" (RAINBOW)
• "Since You Been Gone" (Russ Ballard cover)
• "Lazy" (DEEP PURPLE cover)
• "Imposter" (GRAHAM BONNET BAND)
• "S.O.S." (GRAHAM BONNET BAND)
• "Desert Song" (MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP)
• "Uncle John" (GRAHAM BONNET BAND)
• "Night Games (Graham Bonnet)
• "Into The Night" (GRAHAM BONNET BAND)
• "Assault Attack" (MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP)