Don Airey continues to add ad hoc shows to his summer schedule, the latest being “Beer and Music on the beach” August 10th, which does have a ring to it!

Apparently entry is free.

In addition he will playing at Cambridge Rocks!, a fund raising event for Addenbrokes Hospital on August 3rd.

All three ‘Rainbow’ shows have now taken place, so here is a little round up of what we found out….

from HardrockHaven:

Christopher Willow: When you play a bass solo, you like to play it just alone or to the other instrument? For example, Cozy Powell played sometimes his solo to the organ.

Bob Nouveau: Most of the time I like playing bass solos with a light rhythm (drums) supporting me, and/or light keyboard playing chords. Honestly, because I play other instruments I think bass solos are not the most interesting for me … but still a lot of fun!

Christopher Willow: When having rehearsals, what excites you the most?

Bob Nouveau: Rehearsals get exciting for me when we find new and better ways of doing things … things that make us special and distinctive. Good collaboration is important in creating the band’s sound and identity. It’s also important that there are no problems or difficulties with personalities in the band. As you know, problems like this can destroy a band. So far we are all smiling!

Christopher Willow: How do you connect with the drummer David Keith? Deep Purple and Rainbow have had a very significant sound of the rhythm section. Have you established any special construction of the rhythm line ( bass and drums) for the new Rainbow?

Bob Nouveau: I’m sure David and I will develop our ‘sound’. It takes time for this to happen but remember, Ritchie picked the both of us for a reason. I think we will develop fast.
full interview

In what seems like a remarkable recovery period, two of the Swedish shows cancelled last week appear to have been rescheduled for early July.
The shows being listed are for Gothenburg on July 1st and Stockholm on July 2nd.
Please be aware these are as yet unconfirmed by the management, so buyer beware.

http://www.gronalund.com/sv/scen-show/konserter/deep-purple/

http://liseberg.se/sv/hem/Scen–show/Stora-Scenen/Deep-Purple/

Well done to Pär Holmgren for finding the listings.

It has been quite a while since the last “Monsters of Rock” festivals and so the Rainbow rising again seems to be a perfect opportunity to bring the trademark back to life. Originally advertised as “Ritchie Blackmore´s Rainbow and Guests” the guests revealed shortly after were Thin Lizzy and Manfred Mann’s Earth Band.

According to German newspaper FAZ, about 15.000 fans attended at Loreley which brought the location to its limits: people had to wait for more than half an hour to get into the festival area while slipping on a muddy something that might have been a green field a few days ago and had to wait for ages until being able to leave the parking areas with their cars.

Thin Lizzy

As there’s no “real” Thin Lizzy these days, the band performing the songs consists of the two authentic members Scott Gorham on guitar and Darren Wharton on keyboards, accompanied for quite some years by Ricky Warwick on vocals and Damon Johnson handling the second guitar. While Aerosmith is on hold for quite some time, the band members seem to look for interesting side jobs and so the bass spot is taken by Tom Hamilton while the originally announced Mikkey Dee, currently helping out the Scorpions, is replaced by Judas Priest drummer Scott Travis.

Thin Lizzy concentrate on playing well know stuff including “Jailbreak”, “Dancing In The Moonlight”, “Bad Reputation”, “The Boys Are Back In Town” and “Whiskey In A Jar”, surpassing most visitors expectations and leaving quite an impression on the majority of the crowd.

Setlist | Images

Manfred Mann’s Earth Band

Second band of the evening is Manfred Mann’s Earth Band featuring the still “new guy” Robert Hart (although being in the band since 2011) on vocals and a drummer who doesn’t look like Jimmy Copley who’s still listed on the bands official site as being their drummer.

The Earth Band plays a solid set with no big surprises – neither in the songs they choose nor in the solo parts. Especially the first half of the set feels way to relaxed and laid back for being a “Monster of Rock” and so the vibes need until “Blinded By The Light” to catch most of the audience. This might also be caused by the lack of a real frontman. Robert Hart is a good singer and team player, but lacks some of the positive aspects of the lead singer’s disease which you need to enthuse such a large audience.

Setlist | Images

Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow

The announcement of “Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow will be performing the music of Rainbow and Deep Purple” should have already told people there will be some Deep Purple material in the setlist – however using “Highway Star” as first track following the classic Rainbow intro feels like an awkward choice. Singer Ronnie Romero does an OK job on the vocals, but his voice might not fit too well to the MKII vocal parts, a problem Joe Lynn Turner also experienced during the “Slaves and Masters” era. The instrumental section also scores nothing higher than an OK, with especially Jens Johannson staying behind expectations.

Things improve with “Spotlight Kid” as second track, a classic Rainbow tune and the vocals being a perfect match for Ronnie Romeros voice. Same goes for “Mistreated” and “Since You’ve Been Gone”, followed by “Man On The Silver Mountain”, a song which Ronnie Romero dedicates to the original man on the silver mountain – Ronnie Dio.

During the first chords of “Catch The Rainbow” it is already clear that one of the highlights is about to come and the performance offers nothing less than the highlight of the evening. “Difficult To Cure” opens the solo section which ends with “Perfect Strangers”, another Deep Purple tune showing the same weaknesses as “Highway Star” at the beginning of the set.

Next in line is “Child In Time”, a song not played for quite a while by Deep Purple, followed by “Long Live Rock’n’Roll”, a Rainbow tune including some heavy sing-along with the crowd. During an interview prior to the shows Ritchie Blackmore had already announced that the set would include “Stargazer” which follows as the second highlight of the show.

Sadly, when the majority of the audience still is close to heaven on top of the wizard’s tower, a crash landing starts with the final tracks, “Black Night” followed by “Smoke On The Water” – songs played way too often by Deep Purple themselves and any cover band on this planet.

This ends the evening with some mixed feelings.

The lineup consisting of Ritchie Blackmore on guitars, Ronnie Romero on vocals, Jens Johansson on keyboards, Bob Nouveau on bass and David Keith on drums created a memorable night seeing the Rainbow rising again. Besides some glitches and instrumental weaknesses (which are IMHO perfectly normal for a band that is standing together on the big stage for their first show) the time flew and the concert was quite enjoyable.

The setlist on the other hand was disappointing. Leaving out a couple of Rainbow must haves (“Temple Of The King”, “Street Of Dreams”, “Sixteenth Century Greensleeves”, “Kill the King”, “Stone Cold”, …) and playing stuff that Deep Purple still include in every single show feels like a waste of time.

However – being able to experience “Catch The Rainbow” and “Stargazer” live was alone worth the trip to Loreley.

Setlist | Images

Deep Purple were present at a press conference is Krasnodar recently, and a youtube clip of the event can be seen below.
Topics covered the recent Hall of Fame induction and the progress on the new album.
Yes, press conferences really are that exciting.

thanks to Yvonne Osthausen

Writer Glenn Williams has posted transcripts of three interviews the held with Roger Glover, Don Airey and Steve Morse recently during the Japanese tour.

A quick update on the album Roger? What can you tell us?

RG: Well it’s hard to describe music really. It’s like how do you describe the Mona Lisa? A woman standing there with a funny look on her face. (laughs) Maybe she’s sitting…we don’t know do we?

Q: Is it more of the same?

RG: It’s hard to tell. I think it’s more of a heavier album than Now What?! It has a few unrelenting tracks on it and some surprises and in fact one of the songs is very surprising. It’s more or less finished: we’ve got some more vocals and we did some vocals actually two or three weeks ago in Toronto. All the tracks were done in February in Nashville, Bon Ezrin is still working hard yelling at us. (laughs)

Q: I’m guessing that you didn’t even consider anybody else to produce it given how good Now What?! turned out.

RG: No. Bob was really a good thing for us. You know, we are not a very together band strangely enough. We are all very different people, all live in different parts of the world and all have different ideas about what to do – it’s hell in there. (laughs) So writing sessions tend to be a lot of fun but making a decision is hard. Is it going to be a B Flat or B Flat minor, etc and everyone weighs in but Bob has a work ethic that leaves me tired. He’s really energetic and he’ll say ‘Right. Let’s listen to that one!’ and then ‘Yeah, I like that. We’re doing that’ and all of a sudden two hours of arguing in the band is gone.

Q: Which is what a good producer should be doing.

RG: Yeah. He’s opinionated and he contributes. He’s not one that says ‘I don’t like it: do something I like’, he’ll make suggestions. He’s a good songwriter, has good pitching and can work out harmonies. He works really hard, works his staff hard and us hard. We had eleven days…or was it nine days…doing about twelve songs, some of them from scratch so he’s brilliant.

More of Now What?!

SM: Yeah. In the terms of personnel, procedure and excitement, it’s the same but I would say Bob is more excited about this one and I think it’s a really good time for the band because everybody’s taking it super-seriously but at the same time everybody’s having fun. The Rock Hall of Fame thing sort of put a marker – a point in time where they got recognized. You know, we’ve seen people die, Jon died and there were people in my band, road crew and of course Tommy Bolin and I think everyone is really aware that we owe a lot to the audience and I guess for some reason. People are paying more attention right now. The audiences are more attentive and supportive than ever.

All this and much more at http://www.writerinjapan.com

with thanks to Yvonne Osthausen

JUNE 17, 2016

“A big thank you to all the people who have been in touch with me expressing their concern about my health.

I think you will appreciate that there have been too many to answer every one personally.

So if I don’t reply to you please accept my apologies, but there are only so many hours in a day!

Also my one typing finger is having its own “event” and is starting to get very sore.

I knew I had a lot of friends around the world but never realised quite how many.

Again thanks to you all and I will endeavour to keep you up to date with my progress which so far is great.

Ian.”

via Earmusic/Facebook

From www.deeppurple.com

To all the people who were expecting to see Deep Purple in Sweden and Denmark this week I would like to let you know the reason the shows were not possible,and also to stop all the speculation and rumours.

On the morning of the 14th of June I woke up to find that the right side of my body was feeling numb and I could not control my right hand and fingers.

So I had myself admitted to hospital where I was diagnosed with having suffered a “mini stroke”, or TIA. The hospital staff in Stockholm were amazing and started my treatment straight away.

After both CT and MIR scans there was found to be no serious or permanent damage. As of this moment all I am suffering is a slightly numb right side of the face a tingling sensation in my right hand. My dexterity in the hand is coming back quickly and I fully expect to re commence touring next month.

So now I have a set of tablets which have to be taken every day to ensure it doesn’t happen again!.

So sorry for not being able to play for you.

And I’m sorry for myself!

These are the first shows I have missed with DP since its formation in 1968.

Thanks to all the people who have shown concern and sent their best wishes.

-Ian Paice.

with thanks to www.deeppurple.com

We all here at THS wish you a speedy recovery.

Live Nation Sweden are reporting that tonights show in Stockholm and tomorrows show in Gothenburg have had to be cancelled due to illness.
As yet we have no further news, please check with the venue before travelling!
Looks like Horsens is off too.

July 13th 1985 in Zurich, Switzerland.
The band are receiving their gold and platinum awards from the Swiss sky diving team on behalf of Polydor Records… view here…