British based Team Rock Radio is giving away a free copy of Now what?! deluxe box set, and from the looks of it it’s open worldwide. Enter your details here.
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An interview with Nick Simper was posted a couple of weeks ago (although it is not clear when it was recorded). Nick talks about his work with The Good Old Boys, Nasty Habits, the days long gone with Jonny Kidd & the Pirates, and of course Deep Purple. Listen to the interview on Mixcloud (warning: their flash player is rather intrusive and can do weird things to your browser/antivirus).

Tony Edwards, the cunning linguist, makes a little speech on the band’s 40th anniversary addressed to the German musical establishment:

And the last but not least, Colin Hart spoke to Z Rock R magazine:

SM: And what apparently was the most unmanageable circumstance for Rainbow and/or Deep Purple which YOU managed successfully?

Colin: Some of the most difficult things with Rainbow were related to getting out of situations created by Ritchie, damage from practical jokes, being late, pushing boundaries of time constraints. With Deep Purple there were a few things. The almost impossible group and orchestra dates in London. The crew were great on those shows. Travel and lodging problems were quite tricky. Also trying to control an almost impossible guest list and make it all look easy! When Ritchie came back to Purple in ’84, it was quite difficult to try and work his requests to blend with those of the rest of the band and try to make it all work and keep everyone smiling. He tried hard to make life hard!

Read more in Z Rock R magazine.

Thanks to Yvonne Osthausen for the info.

Berlin’s Rock City Radio Show will be airing an interview with Don Airey on Sunday, Nov 10.

The interview is from October 26 when Don played with Deep Purple in Berlin. The part with Don & Purple is about 30 minutes long (including music).

The show also features an interview with Nick Fyffe & Phil Campbell from The Temperance Movement. Nick talks about replacing Roger Glover temporarily in Deep Purple.

Although the presentation of the show is in German, Don will be in English. The radio station is ALEX (here’s the radio station website, they have a live stream there as well).

Rock City Radio Show Berlin
Date: November 10 (Sunday)
Time: 17:00-18:00 (5-6 pm Central European Time)
Livestream: www.facebook.com/rockcityradioshowberlin

Thanks to Jens from Rock City Radio for the information

Gibson.com has an interview with Bernie Marsden, in which he reveals that he’s finishing a solo album and how quite a star studded it is turning to be:

Who else is on the album?

David Coverdale has graciously sung a song for me, which is, of course, fantastic. We’ve re-recorded “Trouble” from our Whitesnake days – it was one of the first songs we ever wrote together, and it’s the first time we’ve recorded together in 30-odd years. David is singing as well as ever. Obviously, I’ve guested on some Whitesnake shows in the last few years too, so we’re like an old couple now. It’s just nice to be able to talk and play together as friends again.

Do you have good memories of Whitesnake?

My whole Whitesnake era was fantastic, when I look back. Even though David went off and formed the “American” Whitesnake, they re-recorded “Here I Go Again” [a Marsden co-write] which went to Number 1, so I can’t complain. I don’t have any resentment about that at all.

And I can still go out and play with Whitesnake. The U.K tour [May 2013] with Journey was fantastic fun. Getting to hang out with David Coverdale and Neal Schon on the same gig: how bad is that?

Is the album finished?

Nearly. Joe Bonamassa and Steve Lukather have still got to complete their guitar parts for my album. But Ian Paice [Deep Purple, Whitesnake drummer] and Don Airey [Rainbow, Whitesnake keyboardist] are also playing on it. And the harmonica player Mark Feltham [Nine Below Zero, Oasis, Gary Moore, many others]. So I’ve pulled in a few favors. But it’s sounding great. It harks back to Whitesnake, but with a contemporary feel.

Read more on Gibson.com

Many of you who attended the recent shows have been wondering why Big Ian keeps disappearing behind the curtains during the unusually lengthy instrumental breaks, what he’s been up to, and generally if he’s in good health. Caramba TV offers us a unique behind the scenes look at his (potentially NSFW) emergency treatment:

[Updated with tracklist and artwork] The Now What?! tour gold edition that will be released on November 29 in continental Europe and December 2 in the UK will come in following flavours:

• Double CD, with the first disc containing the original studio album, plus bonus tracks It’ll Be Me and First Sign Of Madness. Second disc will contain the Live Tapes (tracklist).
• Double vinyl LP with Live Tapes. Tracklist identical to the CD version, split at 3 songs per side.
• The super duper deluxe limited edition box set with:
  • CD of the original album;
  • bonus DVD: 1. In Conversation (20 minutes) / Bonus Audio content: 2. All The Time In The World (alternative radio mix) / 3. Perfect Strangers (live) / 4. Rapture Of The Deep (live);
  • Above and Beyond single CD: 1. Above And Beyond / 2. Things I Never said / 3. Space Truckin’ (live) / 4. Green Onions / Hush (live)
  • Vincent Price single CD: 1. Vincent Price / 2. First Sign Of Madness / 3. The Well-dressed Guitar / 4. Wrong Man (live) / 5. Vincent Price (promo video)
  • All the Time in the World single CD: 1. All The Time In The World (radio mix edit) / 2. Hell To Pay (radio edit) / 3. Perfect Strangers (live) / 4. Rapture Of The Deep (live);
  • CD with the Live Tapes;
  • a t-shirt;
  • a poster;
  • a sticker.

The box set is being advertised at some online retailers as a 6CD set, which is technically (almost) true, except 3 of the discs are singles and another one is a bonus DVD. It is being priced at around €40/£30 though.

Thanks to Vladimir Drybushchak for the heads up, and to John Waller and Chris Hewlett for additional info.

Deep Purple live at SAP Arena (Mannheim, Germany 2013-11-02)

Powerful from start to finish with sweet humour from all the lads, Mr G. cracking puns and rabbiting funny stuff.
FRIENDS: they are NOT old, but older – ie even more experienced
They were ALL outstanding virtuosos … as were the crowd ( – and I reckon the top performance from the Peter team got us in a great mood B4 DP commenced. Peter was touchingly friendly with us).
Don is always brill. but he absolutely excelled himself. Dear Jon, who lives on in recordings, and Don, who when playing the Jon material delivers energy and honour, are A+++ with trademarks.
Ian was on the good ol’ form and there was a love affair with the crowd even better than usual (similar in Stuttgart). He was kind and conversational. Lets just put Regensburg down to his Mum’s departure to the beyond. (condolencies again Ian – hope Bruce relayed our message to you).

Hope they are back round here soon.

And a mention that personally I really like the SAP Arena acoustics – eg rich bass.

P, S. to Tracy: save ya pennies and come to Europe next time. The UK tours are even tighter with less than 40 miles between dates sometimes (eg in1996). The concerts are even funnier there cos the more of the crowd understand the fooling around

review by Roger

Deep Purple live at SAP Arena (Mannheim, Germany 2013-11-02)

We (six of us) went to see the boys in Mannheim. Peter Frampton was good and is still a master of the voice box and his several guitars. He played for an hour and on the setlist were eight songs.
At half past nine Deep Purple came to the stage and opened the show with a new track. IG said “the new record”. We saw them last year as well and everybody in the band was on fire on both of the nights.
Their energy and the fun they and the crowd have is so impressive. They played five new songs and they sounded very good. DA is magician playing the keyboards.
I like SM if he is playing his calm parts, and IP is still the reference for all drummers.
I took two songs and then the sound board had everything under control. The voice of IG was clear and he sounded very good. My highlight was Perfect Strangers. We saw and heard a nice version of Hush with Don and Steve playing nice solos and Black Night as the final song of the evening.
The band is back on track.

review by Jens Rothermel

Deep Purple live at Westfalenhalle (Dortmund, Germany 2013-11-01)

First of all let me make it clear that I was on the very skeptical side when I read the reviews of the Regensburg gig. Although I’ve always been a big admirer of Mr Gillan, I always hated it when he was struggling and I´ve witnessed that a bit too often recently. So I was very anxious before the Dortmund concert. I took my 13-year old son and would I have to be ashamed? Would I bring him to a bunch of old fellows beyond their prime, led by a frontman who cannot sing anymore and doesn’t communicate with the audience? Well, that wasn’t the case. Far from it. The opposite.
Mr Gillan delivered from A to Z, and boy did he deliver. There was not a single weak note. He was absolutely in command of his voice from the beginning to the end. Also he seemed to have a lot of fun and was very charming and enthusiastic about the audience, smiling a lot, too. He wore his medical boot, but that was hardly noticeable. Funny too, when he came on stage for the encore in a white crooner style dinner jacket and then changed into a shirt which looked like a black dinner jacket! More than a great job – thank you Ian!
The band has been praised more than once recently and very rightly so. Everybody was on top of their game, from Ian Paice’s solo in “The Mule” to Don’s and Steve’s breathtaking and very entertaining playing, to Roger’s cool bass solo during the encore.
The setlist was a dream. I was skeptical about “Apres Vous” as an opener, too, but it worked fabulously. They apparently put a lot of work into this show, for they very cleverly let songs shift into each other in a well rehearsed manner and connected them with little bridges, all very fluent and effortless.
It was a real rock show. Light and sound was flawless and with the LED backdrops the stage looked very professional and at times very dramatic.
Highlights were “Above and beyond” and by far “Perfect Strangers” which they played with a power and grandeur I don’t remember having heard on other tours (and I saw them all since 1985!). But then again, every song seemed to be the highlight. All new songs were great and the audience loved them all.
So, what can I say? Mind you, I’m not so easily impressed and saw them countless times before, but this was one of the best Purple concerts I’ve ever seen. And, phew, yes I definitely could take my son there. He was absolutely overwhelmed. Thanks again, gentlemen, for letting me be proud of you.
(Setlist as the previous gigs, maybe 3000-4000 people in a ¾-filled Dortmund Westfalenhalle.)

review by Joerg

Deep Purple (complete with the tree generation of the Airey clan) were featured on the local news in Düsseldorf, Germany, where they played on October 29. You can watch the news report on WDR.de (in German). The relevant segment starts at 12:44 into the programme and continues for 5 minutes.

Thanks to Yvonne Osthausen for the info.