Over The Rainbow live at Aladin-Music-Hall (Bremen, Germany 2009-10-25)

Just back from Bremen, “Aladin”, after my visit to the first OTR-Concert in the north of Germany. At first: It was WOW !!!!!!

After my own long history of Deep Purple and Rainbow-Concerts with the Master himself: Ritchie Blackmore, now I was very very curious about this event. At first: Only 250 – 300 viewers at a Rock-Club venue and … it was very loud !!! But loud is rock’n’roll !

Because I have seen the other members of OTR already a few times, so I gave JR. my full attention, like his father many times before. JRs guitarwork in combination with this music was in a technical sign more than okay, for a no-name-guitar-player, nearly brilliant ! But because of his genes and the heritage of the Rainbow music, it is necessary to have another way of seeing. In this respect, JR. was a worthy replacement. In his playing, you can hear JR and Ritchie. If you see him as the person, his gesticulation, his facial expression, his presence on the stage, you see his father in a consimilar body. With a lot of friendlier, warmly presence, than the great shadow who is hovering over him. Not so perfect like his father, but also a real talent. Of course a BLACKMORE !

I think, after a view years on stage and with the endorsement of this routiniers like J.L.Turner, Bobby Rondinelli … he would be brilliant, maybe like his father… ! … ? Lets wait a while …

For the resume of this gig. Everyone who likes Rainbow will like OTR. A great professional performance. Still like the original, clearly better than the studio-recordings. But with a clearly gap between Ritchie and JR. Blackmore and the opinion for JR. to fill this distance in his own way. And if the rumors will come true, this guys will create some new songs and the historie will start over (the rainbow).

The setlist: Tarot Woman / Kill The King / Cant Let You Go / All Night Long / Death Alley Driver / Paul Morris Solo / Eyes Of The World / JR Blackmore Solo / Ariel / Wolf To The Moon / I Surrender / Man On The Silver Mountain / Jealous Lover / Bobby Rondinelli Solo / Stargazer / Long Live Rock n Roll

1. Encore: Gates Of Babylon (JR used a very special Fender Stratocaster*)
2. Encore: Since You Been Gone/Cant Happen Here
3. Encore: Spotlight Kid

-Kraatzy- Bremen, 2009-Oct.25

(*A very nice Fender Stratocaster I have never seen before: With body in vintage olympic white with 3 single coils with white covers (like Ritchie’s dummy pickup in the middle position) without inscription. A very nice Stratocaster neck with golden mechanics and a very special inscription: “Fender” (? not sure). JR.Blackmore” (instead of the Stratocaster inscription). The neck is a very special neck with an unusual dark neckcolour (like cherry tree) with a maple fingerboard with pearl ornaments or colour around the hole neck an around the headstock.)

review by kraatzy

Nimbus School of Recording Arts is a music production, audio engineering and recording facility in Vancouver, Canada, of which Bob Ezrin is one of the co-founders. In October 2012 students of the school got an opportunity to be on the new Deep Purple album:

Bob Ezrin was recording with Deep Purple at his studio in Nashville when he gave GGGarth Richardson (Nimbus co-founder and producer) a call. He needed vocals for a track on the album. So, GGGarth gathered 40 Nimbus students into Studio D here at Nimbus and lead them in a recording session to capture gang vocals for Deep Purple track “Hell to Pay” which appears on the new album.

Of these 40 students, many were only in the first month of their program at Nimbus. GGGarth lead the session, saying to one of the new Nimbus students, “Not bad for your third day of class, eh?”.

And it resulted in…

Thanks to Nimbus School of Recording Arts for the info.

Well, it’s not really a chart success, but what exactly are sales charts in this day and age?

The single from upcoming album Now what?! — All the Time in the World got to #1 place on Classic Rock Magazine’s Track Of The Week poll, which is voted by regular punters.

Well done, boys!

Thanks to Classic Rock for the info.

Glenn Hughes gave an interview to Australia’s Tone Deaf. He spoke about Sunbury 1975, his collaboration with Tony Iommi, writing his book, and getting clean:

I had to look at the darkest period of my life, which is ‘83 – ‘91, when I was on crack and I was like really fucking out of my tree. Really, really bad man.

I had to go back and look at that and go, ‘what was my part in this and how can I become a better man, and a better person, when I look back at that behaviour?’ If people like me, who are in recovery from drugs and alcohol, do not look at their behaviour then it may happen again.

I don’t put anything in my body that affects me from the neck up.

That means no mood altering drugs, no chemicals that will make me do things I shouldn’t do. Can you imagine if I was on crack on the fucking Twitter?

I can’t imagine Glenn Hughes, on crack, naked on the roof, on Twitter. That’s what it would have been like 25 years ago.

Read more in Tone Deaf.

Glenn will do a shor tour of Australia in late April. He well play two gigs in Melbourne and Sydney, plus there will be two special events: a book signing and a spoken word session.

Thanks to Daniel Bengtsson for the info.

Blackmore’s Night will release in North America their new album Dancer and the Moon on June 11 via Frontiers Records. The album will be released in two editions: a regular CD, and a digipak deluxe edition with bonus DVD. The DVD includes music videos of Dancer And The Moon and of The Moon Is Shining (Somewhere Over The Sea), plus an extensive interview with Ritchie Blackmore and Candice Night. A digital single of The Moon Is Shining will be released on May 6.

Take your pick from the songwriting team of Candice and Ritchie: the acoustic ‘Somewhere Over the Sea (The Moon Is Shining)’, the rocking track ‘The Moon Is Shining (Somewhere Over The Sea)’, along with the title track ‘Dancer And The Moon’, the nature-inspired ‘The Last Leaf’ and the Russian-influenced ‘Troika’.

Blackmore’s Night own their versions of classic rock chestnuts: RANDY NEWMAN’s ‘I Think It’s Going to Rain Today’, URIAH HEEP’s ‘Lady In Black’, and ‘The Temple of the King’ that Ritchie and the late RONNIE JAMES DIO collaborated on originally for their band, RAINBOW.

Dancer And The Moon is made complete with its inspiring instrumentals, including the waltzy ‘Galliard’ and the DEEP PURPLE-esque ‘Carry On… Jon’, that Ritchie wrote as a heartfelt tribute to his former band mate, the late Jon Lord.

Tracklist:

1. I Think It’s Going To Rain Today
2. Troika
3. The Last Leaf
4. Lady In Black
5. Minstrels In The Hall
6. The Temple Of The King
7. Dancer And The Moon
8. Galliard
9. The Ashgrove
10. Somewhere Over The Sea (The Moon Is Shining)
11. The Moon Is Shining (Somewhere Over The Sea)
12. The Spinner’s Tale
13. Carry On… Jon

Thanks to BraveWords and Ann Leighton Media for the info.

This year Zermatt Unplugged festival, which runs April 9th to 13th, is featuring a special tribute lounge in memory of Jon Lord and Claude Nobs. Both were long time patrons of the festival, and both passed away last year. The lounge will be open at the Mont Cervin Palace daily, from noon till midnight. Documents, interviews and film clips will be shown.

Thanks to Yvonne Osthausen for the info.

The official Now what?! web site has published the second installment of Roger Glover’s diaries:

AUGUST 2012
21 Tuesday

I fly to Lisbon and connect to Faro, where IG meets me. Twenty minutes to his house. He gives me warm welcome. Like me, is raring to go. We have some great sounding tracks and both of us are bristling with ideas. Although IG has got ideas for some of the tracks, there is still a lot of work to be done. For this evening however, we relax, have a meal and sit in his bar in the evening heat over a beer or three and listen to all the tracks. Inspiring. And we’re definitely inspired.

Continue reading on deeppurple-nowwhat.com.

Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov for the info.

The album has appeared on iTunes with about a minute and a half previews of all the songs.

Amazon UK has 30 seconds previews, albeit in piss poor quality (you have been warned).

Thanks to Randy Engman and Daniel Bengtsson for the info.

If you are reading this, it means we have moved The Highway Star to a new server, which should hopefully be quite a bit more responsive then the old cranker. In the process we’ve also trimmed the fat a little by discontinuing parts of the site that have seen little to no activity in a while — we have closed our mailing lists and forum.

Apart from that, everything should work pretty much like in the old place. If you see something that doesn’t, let us know.

Truly yours,
the team

Back in 1990 Gillan toured in Georgia, then a part of the USSR. While in Tbilisi, Big Ian and his wife Bron kept up with their custom of renewing their vows in every country they visited. And let me tell you, back in the day Georgians had a reputation of the people who know how to trow a party.

Thanks to Yvonne Osthausen and Georgian News TV (head over there if the video does not display).