Deep Purple live at Capitol Theatre (Port Chester, USA 2015-07-25)

My 21 1st Deep Purple show spanning 40 years this past Saturday evening at the Capital Theater located about twenty miles north of New York City. Offering a semi spoiler alert here. For those who wish to see the list see the Lewiston, New York review. Very good local three piece opening act came on at 7:55 and played strong power pop for thirty minutes. Our seats were next to the sound board so i asked the sound man ( who I had met two days earlier at the TODAY SHOW..more on that in a bit) what time Purple was coming on. He said 9:00. after a quick run to the mens room was back in my seat at 8:53 and the lights went down and intro music began at 8:55. Apparently I was not the only one caught by surprise. When Ian Gillan took the stage for Highway Star Steve Morse pointed to his watch and smiled. During the course of the first two numbers Ian shook hands with all of his bandmates, later explaining that he missed the ritual backstage hand shake they always do before taking the stage.
Having seen the set list in advance I have to say I was not looking forward to this as much as in the past, at least intially before the excitement built in the theater. Was very pleased that they did four songs from NOW WHAT, but would have gladly traded one of those for another Morse era song such as Ted the Mechanic or even The Aviator ( I don not count Contact Loss and Well Dressed Guitar as the are part of every show these days). The deep cut song was once again Hard Loving Man, and although it was a great performance, they did this number last year. Is it really necessary to do it two years in a row? Would love to have heard Flight of the Rat or maybe Place in Line or Rat Bat Blue.
All that said, it was a very energetic performance, more so than last year. Part of this might have been due to the proximity to Conneticut and having so many family and friends and management types there.
I was EXTREMELY fortunate to be one of the camera operators on the TODAY SHOW performance. A brief word about that. Was able to meet all of the guys there and they were VERY excited to play, even at such a strange hour, as Ian Paice said. They were thrilled with the set up and sound, and if you watch the performance you will hear an excellent mix ( and see some fine camera work:)
After the TODAY SHOW song was able to secure backstages passes for the Capital show ( we already had our tix). Talked to Roger briefly and my wife and I also had a lovely extended conversation with Steve, mostly about family and non musicial things. I did him about a future Flying Colors record and he said he would like to but it was a question of finding the free time for everyone.

review by Eric A. Eisenstein

Deep Purple live at Capitol Theatre (Port Chester, USA 2015-07-25)

Where to begin…Took the drive to Port Chester NY to witness yet another outstanding performance. My girlfriend and I met up with our friend Tony before the show. Had a late lunch, couple of cold ones then walked across the street to the venue. Heart pumping as usual. Anticipation! Why these guys aren’t in the Hall of Shame/Fame is beyond me. Deep Purple killed it!! It was non-stop.. Plowing through an awesome set which included 4 songs from the Now What CD. Fans roaring after every song. You gotta hand it to the sound engineers, those guys are amazing.. In one word, the sound was perfect!! Everything was clear and precise. Once Ian started singing, you knew we were in for a stellar show. His voice was in top shape!! Crystal clear! (again, hat’s off to the sound guys). I was so happy they played Apres Vous.. One of my favorite cuts from the new cd. The Mule…, Hell to Pay, Vincent Price.. The band was clearly feeling the love from the audience. All smiles… This could very well be their last tour of the States.. Go see them..You won’t regret it.. Now it’s off to the Foxwoods Casino in CT… See you there!!! Cheers!!

review by Johnny B

American heavy metal band A Sound Of Thunder is releasing their new album Tales from the Deadside. The album features two bonus tracks: covers of Rainbow’s Death Alley Driver and Dio’s Last in Line.

And they’ve got Tony Carey playing keyboards on Death Alley Driver:

As far as my part goes, I threw down some old-school Hammond and played a much-too-fast solo bit on a Minimoog (remember those?) and woke up on the Sunset Strip in pre-Apocalypse 1976… lots of fun, and not something I do very often. Hollywood Swingin’! Thanks for having me.

The band’s guitarist (and longtime THS follower) Josh Schwartz adds:

Tony is an immensely accomplished musician and producer and I can’t overstate how honoured I am to have him on our recording. His work with Rainbow only scratches the surface of his many talents. Fans will know that Tony didn’t play on the original version of “Death Alley”. By adding wall-to-wall Hammond organ and his own personal style, Tony has warmed up the song and given it a kick in the pants and a very cool ’70s vibe not present on the original.

The bonus tracks are available either separately or together with the album through the band’s Kickstarter campaign, which runs through August 17.

Thanks to Josh S for the info.

Rock Scene Magazine has posted an interview with Don Airey that they’d done back in 2011. Don looks back on his career, from a school bus in Sunderland, to joining the Purple.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

Voodoo Hill, an on-and-off project of Glenn Hughes and Italian guitarist and producer Dario Mollo, will be releasing their third album Waterfall on October 16 via Frontiers Records.

Mollo comments on the album:

It was right in the middle of this creative spring that Serafino of Frontiers called me to see whether I wanted to finally work on a third Voodoo Hill album after all these years. He said Glenn Hughes was available in principle, so the next thing I did was to choose the 11 songs which I thought suited the project the best. In comparison to the previous albums, I wanted to have Glenn more involved in the artistic decisions, so I sent him the songs before the final mixes in order to have his advices on the final result. That was a precious process that brought substantial changes, for instance on “Last Door”, where I literally changed the entire guitar riff to make it work better with the vocal melodies. In the end the song was basically rewritten and dramatically improved. It was a fabulous creative process, which I am truly confident will last more than a bunch of listening sessions and will offer a lot of enjoyment to all those will want to follow Voodoo Hill in this exciting musical venture.

Track list:

1. All That Remains
2. The Well
3. Rattle Shake Bone
4. Underneath And Down Below
5. Waterfall
6. Karma Go
7. Evil Thing
8. Eldorado
9. White Feather
10. Sunflower
11. Last Door

Dario Mollo — Guitars
Glenn Hughes – Vocals
Dario Patti — Bass, Keys
Riccardo Vruna – Drums
Andrea Maiellano — Additional Bass on 3, 4, 6
Vladimir Ruzicic Kebac — Drums on 7, 9, 11

Thanks to BraveWords and Frontiers for the info.

David Coverdale gave an interview to the Noisey, a Vice magazine musical offshoot. Amidst the now familiar story of him getting in touch with Jon Lord, then after his death reconnecting with Ritchie Blackmore, which resulted in The Purple Album, he mentioned that he’d be ‘totally down’ for a one-off show involving all the members of Deep Purple:

I don’t wanna do anything I can’t stand behind. It’s why I stepped away from the project with Ritchie. I would have fucking loved to do it, and even earlier this year his manager had called me and asked if I’d do a song for Ritchie, and I said, “Yeah, but not an old one that we’ve done. He must be sitting there jamming on some riffs. Tell him to send me some riffs, and I’ll make a fucking song out of it.” It’s what I do. So far I haven’t had any new Ritchie riffs to mess with, but it would be fantastic for me as it would be in fulfilling one of Jon Lord’s ambitions to have all surviving members of Deep Purple do a fucking big show as a “Thank you” to the insanely loyal fanbase that Purple has, and not only Deep Purple, but all the splinter groups. I’m totally down for that.

Read more at noisey.vice.com.

In slightly related news from our home decorating celebrity gossip department, if you happen to be shopping for vintage furniture in Munich, a store called JJ Company in Thierschplatz 4a might be worth a visit. Exklusiv-münchen.de reports that it boasts Madonna, Uma Thurman, Victoria Beckham, and Barak Obama among its customers. Oh yeah, and it is being run by David’s daughter Jessica Schröder-Coverdale.

Thanks to Yvonne for the info.

Joe Lynn Turner gave an interview to Norwegian metal webzine Eternal Terror. Quite frankly, nothing of consequence has been said, but in the interests of complete coverage, here it is:

One of the most memorable and fun shows I have ever attended was the Over the Rainbow gig in Malmø (Sweden) back in October 2009. The house was packed and everybody was so into it, and you guys just ROCKED! Do you recall that gig? Do you ever miss performing with Over the Rainbow? I thought you guys were awesome, and given that I was born in 1984 and missed out on all those early Rainbow tours that gig in Sweden in 2009 was like a dream come true for me. That was the closest to Rainbow I could possibly get, so for me it has a special place in my heart.

Yes, I do remember that show. The times spent in Over the Rainbow were fun and exciting. Thank you for your kind words. Glad you liked the show so much! We did hear from a lot of younger fans that this was the closest they have come to seeing Rainbow because they did not get a chance to see the band in the 70s and 80s. Glad we could fulfill that dream for so many fans.

Read more in Eternal Terror.

Thanks to Jens Nepper for the info.

On July 21 Blackmore’s Night has appeared on German TV miming to two tracks from the upcoming new album All Our Yesterdays:

• All Our Yesterdays
• The Other Side plus a short interview

Promo video for the title track was also posted on YouTube by the record company:

In related news, The Guardian has published an opinion piece by Tim Hall highlighting 10 Blackmore’s songs from th early part of his career:

Deep Purple – Speed King
Although it was their fifth album, In Rock was the record that established Deep Purple as one of the genre-defining hard rock bands. The early albums by what became known as the mark I version of the band, featuring Rod Evans on vocals, had been a mixture of late-60s psychedelia and pop with few hints of what the band would later become. All that changed with the arrival of Ian Gillan and Roger Glover to form Deep Purple mark II. The album’s opening number begins with an ear-splitting wall of shredding guitar, before Blackmore unleashes that raw and dirty riff while Gillan cut-and-pastes fragments of well-known rock’n’roll lyrics. For the instrumental break it changes tack, with a call-and-response between Blackmore’s very bluesy licks and Jon Lord’s organ. There are strong echoes of the rock’n’roll that Blackmore paid his dues playing at end-of-the-pier shows in the 60s, but this was rock’n’roll turned up to 11.

Continue reading in The Guardian.

Thanks to Nigel Young, BraveWords, and Hein Bierman for the info.

The band have performed Smoke on the Water on The Today Show live this morning. The video has been posted officially on today.com, and unofficially on YouTube:

The Montreal Blues Society is preparing a review of Deep Purple’s appearance at the Ottawa Bluesfest. In the meantime, we are happy to offer you their review of Now What?!

Ok, blah, blah, blah. What about the music? I pour myself a frosty Kool Aid and set myself on the king’s throne and hit play. Expecting a big ass riff to kick me in the bollocks, I am instead greeted with a mellow bass riff with some soon added guitar fills to start off ‘A Simple Song’. A subdued Gillan chimes in and the vibe is kind of Gabrielish or Gillan solo (not a bad thing)…but then BANG… Hammond, Ball, Pearl, Vigier, and Shure explode and come at me with a vengeance. A skull penetrating rhythm invades the prior serene lead in. It didn’t take long and I now keel over in pain from what I wanted. I can’t believe how prominent the bass sounds. The standard guitar solo is switched out for a great Hammond piece by Airey before the song 360s back to how it began. Beautiful. I don’t even make it to track two…repeat.

Read more at the Montreal Blues Society.

Thanks to Sean Willoughby for the info.

Watch this space for further developments.