![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan9.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/mcbride1.jpg)
A skirling whiff of danger
Deep Purple opened their European leg of the Splat! tour on September 29, 2026, in Sofia, Bulgaria. And there were surprises in the set. Spoilers ahead.
Read more »Thunder in my brain
Several video clips have been posted over the last few days on the Ritchie Blackmore Official youtube channel, some of those known better than the others.
Read more »Benz on the highway
Europe teamed up with fellow Swede Erik Grönwall to play a song we all know on Swedish TV: The performance is from a long running Swedish quiz show where Europe acts as the house band for the first three episodes of the season. The question for this musical segment was of course which artists made […]
Read more »We all came out to college
Sometimes Deep Purple related news come when you least expect it. I was browsing the conference schedule for a pro audio-video tradeshow taking place in Stockholm in early October. Kicking off the proceedings is a talk called, “Smoke on the Water – the story behind a rock classic“. A kind of odd topic where the […]
Read more »Skills, talent, and plenty of bollocks
A new documentary focussing on Deep Purple Marks 2, 3, & 4. There are no groundbreaking revelations, no original footage, it looks like it was compiled from previously known sources. But it’s nicely put together. For whatever reason, the playback on other sites is disabled for this video, so if you have an hour to […]
Read more »Across the puszta plains to see
Ritchie Blackmore’s YouTube channel has posted a video clip for Anya. The video material appears to have been sourced from Come Hell or High Water and synced up with the album version. The video creation is credited to one Russell Wagus.
Read more »Public demonstration of friendship
Classic Rock publishes an account of Ritchie Blackmore appearing on stage with Deep Purple on this past tour, with some input from Ian Gillan and a few Blackmore quotes taken from the recent Guitar Player interview. Nothing was said that we haven’t really heard before, yet here it is. “It was an absolute pleasure to […]
Read more »Queen – Mary Long – Beach 9/11/26
Having worked in the World Trade Center, this day has been miserable for 24 years. Finally, the day provided some joy. In the shadow of the Queen Mary in Long Beach, Deep Purple completed their return to California. It’s been seven years since they’ve been here. Another installment in the summer of the Deep Purple […]
Read more »Sweet little lies
Ian Gillan was a guest on the Joann Butler In Studio With… podcast, and here is the result. Some of the stories we’ve already heard before, others are new.
Read more »Anything but heavy
The Mercury News carries a pretty scathing review of the band’s performance from September 5, 2026, at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California. Deep Purple really had no business following Kansas and, not surprisingly, its headlining set felt quite anticlimactic. Even though it appeared (at least on paper) to have the most impressive lineup […]
Read more »
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing