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“Copenhagen 1972″ DVD – a review

dp-copenhagen1972dvdTwo months after earMUSIC re-released the Copenhagen show on CD, a DVD re-release of the same show is in the pipeline.

The DVD offers the same music content as the CD release, including the three live tracks (“Strange Kind Of Woman” / “Smoke On The Water” / “Space Truckin’”) from Hofstra University 1973 and is basically a re-issue of the “Live in Concert 1972/73″ DVD.

The Copenhagen show was filmed by Danmark Radio, Denmark’s national radio and television station in black and white and offers a good picture quality, missing a few details which is fine regarding the age of the recording. It shows a young and energetic DEEP PURPLE that could be visually compaired to the DEEP PURPLE performing on “Doing their thing”, with a long haired Ian Gillan in an incredible sweater (Would be great to see THAT in colour!). During the bands perormance it’s clearly visible that the camera crew wasn’t sure what to expect, showing the “wrong” musicians during several solo spots.

The Hofstra clips are filmed in colour and show an optically changed and grown up band – especially Ian Gillan looks very different with cut hair and beard. The highlight of these bonus tracks is “Smoke On The Water”, the only known video recording of this song performed by the original MK II lineup.

The DVD leaves out the ”Live in Concert 1972/73″ bonus “Burn” (which would be somehow misplaced on a MK II recording), but adds “Deep Purple & The Music Revolution”, a stunning 11-minute gem as additional bonus: a very serious documentation about pop culture, taken from an unknown source (likely Swiss TV) featuring the young Claude Nobs and some band members of DEEP PURPLE not willing to discuss thoughts like if their music is consumated like Coca Cola. Overall – as Ian Gillan summarizes – “Music is fun”.



15 Comments to ““Copenhagen 1972″ DVD – a review”:

  1. 1
    Buttockss says:

    I have this already, thought it was recorded in an elementary school auditorium because of all the young kids seen in the audience.

  2. 2
    Scott says:

    One of the best Purple shows of that era. But why are they releasing it again??? I could see doing that If there was extra footage of both shows especially full versions of the songs from Hofstra.

    So what the reasoning behind this.

    Why not release a box set of the Made In Japan shows complete and unedited with a DVD of the making of the album including the 8mm footage that was found a few years ago. That would be a big seller.

  3. 3
    Purple Person says:

    Back in the late 1990s/early 2000s there was a late night long-play TV commercial for a “Guitar-Rock” multi CD set. It basically had all the 70s Big-Riff Guitar hits of the 60s 70s and 80s. I don’t know if anybody remembers these commercials where they’d have 4-second clips of various hits as the names of the bands/songs scrolled down the screen…

    … anyway for the clip of Smoke on The Water, I swear there was footage of Mark 2 playing the song on some TV show, and it stood out as different footage than any of the other stuff (different than copenhangen and hofstra etc…) Ritchie was wearing the Pilgrim Hat during the performance in this footage, so I knew it wasn’t any of the other stuff. Hope it turns up some day

  4. 4
    MacGregor says:

    Already have it & I don’t watch it that often, probably because of the woeful camera use. Why show a close up of Gillan’s face when Blackmore is soloing? And many other bad camera angles if my memory serves me well. I know that is how a lot of the older footage is with pop & rock music! But it is really annoying, but I purchased it purely for nostalgic reasons, as the MK2 lineup from that ‘golden’ era is a classic! Cheers.

  5. 5
    Russ says:

    @3

    I remember that Guitar Rock commercial/Ad. I would swear it was Hofstra footage.

  6. 6
    Lea says:

    I think I’ll save my money as I already have the original DVD of this without the bonus 11 minute doc.
    It will probably get released on Blu-ray at some point in the near future, most probably titled “Machine Head Live”, so when that finally appears I will replace my old DVD.

  7. 7
    nupsi59 says:

    @ 3
    In “beatclub”, a german TV-music show in the 60s/70s, Deep Purple performed “No No No” and an early version of “Highway Star” where TMIB is wearing this silly hat.
    In another “Time Life” commercial they used snippets from the new version of the “Hush” video for the song “Woman from Tokyo”.

  8. 8
    LRT says:

    @Purple Person: I’m rather sure that was an edited piece you saw. It’s the only explanation I can find. There was one for “Hush” as well going around years ago from a TV ad for a compilation album. But they got that one so wrong that all it had were clips of the mkII line-up for it. Not saying it’s impossible you saw something of significance or not, but it is a theory that adds up.

  9. 9
    Tracy (Zero the Hero) Heyder says:

    Why repackage a repackage??? What they should do if they wind up repackaging this again, is colorize the footage as has been done with some of the old classic black & white movies.

  10. 10
    metaljim says:

    #3 I remember that commercial and it was indeed the Hofstra footage. I remember thinking how cool it was to see them using the right footage, of the right line-up, for the song. Other clips used for other artists/songs on that commercial were way off base.

  11. 11
    Henrik says:

    – Why do they release the same stuff over and over?

    Whatever happened to the MIJ documentary including the tv-show DP did in Japan?

  12. 12
    Russ says:

    @11

    Maybe that MIJ documentary will be what’s coming in November.

  13. 13
    purpledaniel says:

    @11,

    there was never a MIJ doc in production. Allreday checked it with Simon Robinson. The japanese tv show is also AWOL.

  14. 14
    ltia says:

    What we really need is someone to develop some modern tech to separate the tracks and remix it (I know off the shelf stuff that does this badly, but I know that it is possible to do it properly, not sure if anyone has done it yet). There may not be the money in it for it to be worth it anymore, sadly. Same goes for using clever tech to make bootlegs sound better.

    It’s definitely the mix that’s the problem for me. Gillan is waaayyy to high in the mix and Blackmore is sometimes inaudible. It’s a much better show than it sounds because of this. Just imagine Fireball live 72 with a proper mix!

  15. 15
    Marius says:

    I have the “Live in Concert 1972/73” DVD and agree with Itia about the mix, especially Blackmore is often very silent compared to the rest.

    On the back of this 2013 rerelease it says “Video and Audio restored and digitally remastered in 2013”. I always wondered if this is just a 1:1 rerelease or really an improvement, but thought probably rather the first, so I didn’t pick it up since I didn’t want to have the same DVD twice.

    Is there really a noticable difference to the “Live in Concert” DVD, or is the sound still pretty much the same?

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