When Glover came back from early retirement as a live musician in 1979, joining Rainbow after Dio's departure, he did play a Bicentennial TBird praising it as the bass he would have played with DP "had it been around then". The love affair ended when he broke the headstock of his TB during a gig by bumping it into a mike stand, this causing sever doubts as to the tour-hardiness of TBirds. Next on his list was then an Ovation Magnum ...
The TB saw action in the
Since you've been gone vid (with a still very youthful Graham B.):
And on
All Night Long, award-winning for its alltime dumb and misogynist lyrics (penned by Glover, who turns red at the thought today)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jvd8RR0wvNg&feature=relatedWhether the TB can actually be heard on
Down to Earth, I don't know, it's possible. The bass on DTE certainly sits more in the music than Glover's trademark Ric sound on the later Mk. II (pre-reunion) albums (a sound that, ironically, Glover never really liked, thinking it too brash, he wanted to sound "more American, with less distortion").
After the next Blackmorist purge, with Powell and Bonnet leaving and "people from the colonies" such as Turner and Rondinelli their replacements, the TB was seen no more. The Ovation Magnun neck was carbon strengthened, it would win the battle against the mike stand everytime!
Actually, the Ovation made an appearance as early as in
Donington 1980 (last gig of the Bonnet/Powell line-up) so the poor TB must have been decommissioned via the mike stand between the date of your pic (79/80) and the Donington gig.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_-4BXng9Zw&feature=related
