I just received a promotional cd copy of Fireball 25th ann. edition. It's a killer!
The cd comes without a booklet, so I clocked the lenghts from my cd-player:

Well, I'm sure we all know the first part. This sounds great. Fantastic. I only had the vinyl version of Fireball, but this is one who's gonna get a lot of airplay in my room!

I'm Alone fits well on the disk, with Ritchies chicken-like playing during the riff To me, this song's intro is familiar to 'Room full of Mirrors' (Jimi Hendrix). It's got about the same rhythm and bass.
Freedom '96 Good rocker, with the riff that reminds me a litlle of Lucille. More relaxed, though.

SLOW TRAIN The new gem! A gem it is, really. It's kinda heavy. Maybe 'dark' is a better word. After the first couplet, we get a band going "aaaah-aahaahaaahaaa" etc. Fantastic!! I wonder why this one one didn't made it onto Fireball.
The guitar playing during Gillan's singing, is a bit reminiscent of "Twist in the Tale", believe it or not!
There's also a part with just Paicey drumming and Gillan singing:

"You do me right
you do me wrong
tell me where do I belong
you do me up
you do me down
I accept it all without a frown"

Then, of course, there's an instrumental break. Great solo's of both Jon and Ritchie. It's this typical Deep Purple interaction-playing (or how should I call it) in which they take over from eachother every time.

The Medley is fun. It starts with Ritchie, Jon and Roger fooling around in the studio. At least it sounds like that.
It's great to get a little look in the kitchen named Deep Purple. On both Midnight in Moscow and Robin Hood, it's Jon who starts the melody. Ritchie and Roger follow. It's like they immediately know what to play, like it's a standard purple tune!
Probably recorded after a hard day of recording in the studio, or maybe Gillan was to late that day! William Tell -theme is first played by -who else?- Ritchie. Jon knows the tune pretty good! A few false notes, but that's what makes it great. I think, in the meantime Paicey has made a quit intrance through the backdoor, 'cause all of a sudden there's drums too! Great!

Fireball '96 might be the nicest of the "'96" tracks. Because it's instrumental. Quite good for a first take! :) It's nice, because now one is able to get a close listen to all the instruments, and how the song is build up. The intro ventilator sound is missing, and there's no Jon Lord during Paicey's drum thing. This song is great to play loud, even without vocals.

Piano Insert (backwards piano forwards) The famous Jon lord's audition for Deep Purple tapes. :) Sounds like the piano has a tremelo.
Nice, but not very special. Funny title, because they could have left it as well. Maybe that explains the title! Good one Roger! :) (A piano recorded backwards and played forwards, just sound normal :) So, it's just a filler, of less than a minute.

No One Came '96 - I haven't listened to all the '96 version carefully yet (It's not the real thing for me) but during No One Came I noticed something during Ritchies solo. Could it be a different one? No, it sounds like this solo is played over the bridge -coil, whereas the 'normal' version has a more middle-coil sound. Dunno. What did you do Roger?

Btw, why not record Morse live-versions of the '96-songs? ;-)

Great cd folks, I'm looking forward to the release with a booklet!

Fedor de Lange