Deep Purple live at Orange County Fair (Costa Mesa, USA 2014-08-06)

Saw DP at the Pacific Ampitheater (outdoor, modern facility, holds 18,000 and was full) and they were in TOP form. Blue Oyster Cult opened with a tight and rocking set playing most of their hits and ending with Don’t Fear The Reaper. Relaxed and very tight. Great opener. Then the drum beat we all know for Highway Star. Let’s start with IG… His voice was spot on. Ian seemed to be energized from the crowd and commented about getting “great energy”. During one scream, you could hear him push for more and for a few seconds he had the scream we all love from the earlier years. Steve and he gave each other a great look of satisfaction afterward. I was so happy to see Ian at his finest. Into the fire, Hard loving man followed and I was in seventh heaven.

Steve. Wow. Been following DP since I was 12 years old when I borrowed my older brothers MIJ cassette. I am a Blackmore and Morse fan and was absolutely jaw dropped by Steve’s playing on this night. He had some new runs and riffs that blew me away…me thinks some of this will be on the next album. I am still amused by watching him smile through the whole concert. A DP guitarist smiling? Whooda thunk it. Don. Wow again. Had my wife, 21 year old daughter and 20 year old son with me, which was a treat, and my son was blown away by the sound and ferocity of Don doing his thing. The torch couldn’t have been passed better 10 years ago. (R.I.P. Jon). As is the tradition, Don threw some California themed and Beach Boys Nuggets into his solo. And smiling too (will I ever get used to DP being a happy band?) Roger. Come on, it’s Roger. Solid and enjoying every moment of it, singing along to much of the music. A rock, in rock. Ian Paice. Seriously. No one person should have those skills. Together with Roger, the low end was handled like Swiss time. It is fun to see IP run the show too. It all comes back to him pulling the band back into the fold following their improvisation moments.

Someone else has posted the setlist from Ventura, and this was the same as far as I can remember (what beer?). 3 Now!What? songs. Vincent Price seemed to fit best (IMHO) in the live set. Uncommon Man was special to those who know the song and meaning, but the crowd relaxed a bit during the new numbers as would be expected. It was a joy to hear the new stuff live.

The band seemed to be having the time of their lives, like new kids with fun toys. Sound and lights were spot on. Ian had a bit of a verbal encounter with an A**hole up front, but it was brief and Ian let it go after a few seconds. I went in with great hope, as this was the first time our kids got to see the band their dad plays constantly at home, and DP did not disappoint. It was fun for me to see my kids see the very best of musicianship, live, with no audio trickery, or big flashy production numbers. Now they know why dad’s neck and voice is always hurting after a show.

On a scale of 1 to 10…. a solid 11

review by Chris Blackmore

Several items appeared in the US press in the last few days that didn’t seem significant enough to warrant separate posts.

ABC News Radio has an interview with Steve Morse promoting the tour.

There is a generally positive, if superficial review of the opening night of the tour in Scottsdale, Arizona, at AXS.com.

VC Star opted for a bootleg quality video clip from the show at Ventura County Fair on August 5.

And perhaps this would be the right time to remind you that you can send in your own review of a show via our review submission form.

Thanks to Andrey Barabanshchikov and Amit Roy for the info.

It’s a poorly hidden secret that one Ritchie Blackmore has an admiration for one Ian Anderson. After all, after unknown amount of persuasion, Anderson played a flute solo on the first Blackmore’s Night album. The whole thing was arranged online. The solo was recorded overseas and overlayed in the studio later on. A little less known fact is that some time later said Mr. Anderson got a very stern notice from Her Majesty’s Customs to present his sorry arse at the nearest office for explanations. Turns out, there was a package in his name containing a handgun. In full compliance of the 2nd Amendment, but a big no-no back in the old country. That was Ritchie’s way to say thank you.

Rolling Stone magazine (shock! shudder! who’d have imagined they still write about music?) has an interview with Ian Gillan, in which answers the question recently raised elsewhere.

After the conversation detoured from the new album to the Rock’n’Roll HoF nonsense, it ended up with this:

There was a lot of controversy this year with Kiss’ current members not wanting to play with their original members at this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. Would you be willing to play with the group’s founding guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore, who had a bitter split with the band in 1993, at the ceremony if you were inducted?

Well, we are the living, breathing Deep Purple. This is the longest that any lineup has ever been together in this band. And it would be unconscionable to think about bringing Ritchie in. I don’t have an issue with Ritchie, nor does anyone. I’ve been in touch with Ritchie recently and everything’s cool, so there’s no bitter, personal problem. We’re too old for that and everything’s in the past, but no. That would be out of the question. How insulting that would be to [current guitarist] Steve Morse, for example? So if that’s the stumbling block, fair enough. Never the twain shall meet.

Why do you say that?

I’m saying what I’m about to say not to wind Ritchie up, if he’s reading this. He knows that we’ve got to talk about these things. So I say this with no rancor, and let’s get the record straight: I was just as much of an asshole as Ritchie was. But Ritchie carried it on for a little longer. Had Ritchie stayed with the band, it would have been all over. It would have just ended. Without any doubt in anyone’s mind – it was all over. So the day he walked out was the day we had to rebuild. We had Joe Satriani for one year, and he got us over the crisis, and then we got Steve and started to rebuild. Within a couple of years, we started playing arenas again, and it’s been fantastic ever since.

It’s good to go through those crises. It doesn’t do your heart any good, but that was the spirit of the band. So to go back to the question of “Would we do the show with Ritchie?” I think that would be hugely disrespectful to what I call the living, breathing, Deep Purple. There’s always been a living, breathing, Deep Purple, good or bad at any stage of our evolution, and how it is now is particularly healthy and it wouldn’t be right.

Read more in Rolling Stone.

Thanks to Yvonne for the info.

[Warning: contains setlist spoilers] Cory Frye, who became mildly famous in these quarters after his passionate review of Now what?!, has a feature in Oregon’s Albany Democrat-Herald promoting Purple tour. It is a well written introduction of the state of the band in 2014 for the uninitiated, based on an interview with Steve Morse.

On joining the band:

Roger had a lot to do with that. He has very eclectic tastes. He’d heard a live performance I’d done with the Steve Morse Band — all-instrumental, something that might have turned off a few rock players, but Roger was intrigued. When I heard they were interested in me, I thought, ‘That’s interesting. Do they know what I do?’ But it’s worked out well.

On Don Airey:

Don’s a vast well of musical knowledge. He’s wonderful to play with, generally good-natured and easy to get ideas back from. He’ll throw them back with a variation. We don’t even have to talk. The intro to “Uncommon Man” (“Now What?!”) was totally improvised, just us sitting in the studio with Bob (Ezrin, producer) telling us, “Just jam now, like I saw you do in concert.” That’s a wonderful thing. I try to guess the next chord Don’s going to play, and he tries to guess where I’m going.

Read more in Albany Democrat-Herald.

Ah, and by the way, if you believe setlist.fm, Highway Star was back to the set yesterday in Arizona as the opener. Which means Après Vous is out and we’re left with just 3 songs from the last album: Vincent Price, Uncommon Man, and Hell to Pay 🙁

Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov (deep-purple.ru) for the info.

Eagle Rock will release a new Deep Purple video, titled Live in Verona. This is the show at the Arena di Veriona — an ancient Roman amphitheater — on July 18, 2011, from the orchestral tour. It is due on October 20 in the UK in DVD and blu-ray formats. There are no further details at this point.

Meanwhile, here’s a pretty good quality audience recording of Lazy from that show to wet your appetite:

Thanks to Peter for the info.

Illinois Entertainer has a cover story on Deep Purple with interview from Roger Glover, who seems to be the go-to spokesperson for the band on the upcoming tour. The nice bit is also that the anonymous interviewer(s) seem to know their Purple marbles.

IE: Most fans and music industry insiders consider Machine Head to be the apex of Deep Purple’s recorded legacy. How do you feel about that album now after 40 years?

RG: Obviously with that album and Made In Japan (which was from the Machine Head era), and Made In Japan was really the album that broke “Smoke On The Water” in America especially, it was great to have that in your history. You can be very in intimidated by that success. There are a few bands that might say ‘How can we top that? How can we better that?’ but we actually don’t think that way. We feel we should just make the best music we can at the time and that is all there is to it. Before Machine Head came out we didn’t know it was going to be the album it became. And we certainly didn’t know “Smoke On The Water” was going to be the song it was going to be. So, it was not in our hands, really. It was entirely up to the public. You don’t try to write a classic; you just write. Every now and then someone will come up to us and say, ‘ How come you guys don’t write songs like “Highway Star” anymore?’ Actually, we do. They just don’t sound like “Highway Star.” If they sounded like “Highway Star” we would just be a copy of ourselves. The thing to avoid is to become a parody of yourself. All you can do is what is in your heart at that time. No one knows what the future of a song is going to be when you are doing it. You can’t predict that.

And on the unsung hero (for many), but widely acclaimed for the few, member of the band — Ian Paice:

IE: The rhythm section of Ian Paice and Roger Glover is one of the more ferocious in Rock ‘N’ Roll’s history. What’s it like for you to play with Ian Paice night after night?

RG: Well, thank you! When I first joined the band I remember being totally blown away with Paicey’s playing, and with the others. I actually didn’t really know who Deep Purple were back then when I first worked with them. I was knocked out with the musicianship, especially Paicey. He seemed effortless. A lot of the drummers bash the hell out of a kit, but as Paicey says: ‘you can only hit a drum so hard; it won’t get any louder. It just makes you play not so good.’ He has that ability to play more like a jazz musician; more like a big band swing drummer. He hits the skins in such a way that they really crack, as opposed to hitting it really hard. That gives him a lot of fluidity. He’s a very fluid drummer; and a groove merchant. Once he hits that groove, it’s great. He plays with a kind of swing that no other drummer I know has. A lot of drummers these days play like drum machines. It’s very difficult to get your personality over with drums. I can take Paicey at any time. I can tell his style. When I first joined the band he came to me after a while and said, ‘By the way, I don’t follow; I lead.’ And I said: ‘OK, I got the picture.’ From that point on, I have just tucked in with him. It’s a magic feel, you know? When I was growing up and in school I would see bands and I was always blown away by the power of a bass and a bass drum locking in. And that was something I could never quite achieve until I joined Purple. Still, to this day, my mind will wander back to those days and I will get the same kick. The power you get when you are really in tight with the drummer. I get that with Paicey. It is a joy to play with him.

Read more in the Illinois Entertainer.

Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov (deep-purple.ru) for the info.

Roger Glover spoke to the Arizona Republic to promote the upcoming tour. After telling the now familiar story of making the last album, an interesting questing popped up:

Q: You and Ian made your first appearance on 1970’s “Deep Purple in Rock.” Were you a fan going into that?

A: Ian and I differ on that. I had never heard of the band. He says he had, but I’m not sure how true that is. Deep Purple meant nothing in England. In 1968, when “Hush” was a big hit in the States, nothing happened in England. I got turned on to the band just before I joined by the Sweet. Remember the Sweet? Brian Connelly and I were friends. And he said, “Listen to this band, Deep Purple.” I said, “Oh, I never heard of them.” He said, “They dye their hair black.” But the first real impression I got of the band was my audition, which was recording a single. And I was blown away by their musicianship, especially … well, all of them.

Read more in the Arizona Republic.

Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov (deep-purple.ru) for the info.

California Breed has announced more European tour dates in November. It appears that on the continent they will be headlining the shows. Full details in our calendar.

News also came out that Joey Castillo (Queens of the Stone Age) will be playing drums on all upcoming dates as “it became clear that Jason Bonham’s professional commitments would prevent him from being able to tour with the group”.

Thanks to Daniel Bengtsson and Blabbermouth for the info.

Obligatory disclaimers:

1. The quote below is in reverse translation from Polish. No translation is 100% accurate. Double translation…

2. The interviewee has a quite a track record of trolling performing practical jokes.

Given both points, take the following with a generous pinch of salt and don’t get too too excited just yet.

Ritchie Blackmore was interviewed for the Polish magazine Teraz Rock, and this passage was quoted by promoters of Blackmore’s Nigh show in Poland at the end of August:

You know, I have been in contact with Ian Gillan for some time now and we agreed that maybe at some point I will play two or three concerts with Deep Purple to bring joy to the fans to recall memories. I would not want to promise anything, because we’re all pretty lazy and so far we have failed to establish anything concrete. I have the impression that they are currently quite busy, and I’m happy doing what I’m doing. I would be happy, however, to play two, three concerts with Deep Purple. For the fans, for nostalgic reasons.

The real news here is not that Blackmore would be open to a one-off (he has said that much before), but that he is in contact with Gillan.

Thanks to Kostya (www.deep-purple.ru forums) and Metal Mind Productions for the info.