[hand] [face]
The Original Deep Purple Web Pages
The Highway Star

This wasn’t simply another guest appearance

Long Island Sounds empathically reviews the gig on August 12, 2026, at the Jones Beach Theater:

There are some concerts you attend.

There are others you experience.

Deep Purple at Northwell at Jones Beach Theater was very much the latter.

At 80 years old, vocalist Ian Gillan is no longer the singer who effortlessly unleashed those legendary high notes in “Highway Star,” “Lazy,” or “Space Truckin’.” Nor should anyone realistically expect him to be. Time has a way of reminding even the greatest performers that they are human.

But give Gillan credit: he tried.

And that effort was evident throughout the evening.

Continue reading in the Long Island Sounds.

Thanks to Tobias Janaschke for the heads-up.

Related:

Posted by Nick on Sunday, August 16th, 2026, filed under Tour Reviews. You can follow comment on this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a comment. Pinging is currently not allowed.

«


3 Comments to “This wasn’t simply another guest appearance”:

  1. 1
    Leslie Hedger says:

    Nice review!! Thanks so much for putting this online!! Yup, Ritchie 2026 and I think he did a GREAT job as did the entire band!!!

    August 16th, 2026 at 18:19
  2. 2
    Uwe Hornung says:

    Who says there are no DP fans left in America?! 👏

    August 16th, 2026 at 18:20
  3. 3
    Leslie Hedger says:

    LOL Good one UWE. Yes, there are fans left here but all the folks I know that like DP are in 60’s and 70’s, many balding and with beer bellies (the guys, not the ladies) 🙂 . Hard to believe that in the 1970’s they were huge and getting airplay on all Rock stations, AM and FM. FM stations used to play tracks off all their albums, even the live version of Space Truckin off of MIJ!! I think the last song I heard was Hell to Pay off of Now What. If I bought an FM station the first song I would put on would be Mandrake Root off of Live in Stockholm 1970!! That might get people’s attention LOL.

    August 16th, 2026 at 19:08

Add a comment:

Comments are premoderated and are strictly for the post feedback. We have a forum for everything else.

||||Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
© 1993-2026 The Highway Star and contributors
Posts, Calendar and Comments RSS feeds for The Highway Star