Speed King is back in the live set and by all accounts it’s a scorcher. Filled with improvisations, bits and pieces of classic rock’n’roll and even occasional croonery. The band is firing on all cylinders like a well oiled machine. Check out this one from Hamburg on November 24:
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Japanese promoters are doing something right. The managed to book a package tour (dubbed the Voices of Rainbow) of the three surviving Rainbow vocalists — Graham Bonnett, Joe Lynn Turner, and Doogie White. Bonnett will apparently headline the show performing with Alcatrazz, while JLT and White will be performing with a very Blackmoresque guitar player Akira Kajiyama and his band. Three dates have been announced: March 12 in Tokyo, March 13 in Nagoya, and March 14 on Osaka. Tickets will go on sale December 15 with presales starting a few days earlier. Full details in our calendar.

JLT and Akiro Kajiyama performing King of Dreams:

In other news, JLT did an interview with Guitar International recently, promoting Raiding the Rock Vault show, in which he took part, and was asked a question that undoubtedly keeps everybody at THS headquarters wide awake:

Robert: I ask because you were in Deep Purple and was wondering if you were going to be included in the [Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame] induction?

Joe Lynn Turner: That would be interesting. I really have no idea. I have no idea which of the other members of Deep Purple will be included. I don’t know if it’s just the Mach 5 line-up. Deep Purple is a band that had a lot of members run through it. I haven’t really pursued it or tried to find out, because I’m personally half and half about it. I have a little bit of Blackmore’s attitude in the sense that Deep Purple should have been in 20 years ago, “what’s that all about?”

Thanks to Juan Ignacio Flier for the info.

Looks like Deep Purple are due to headline yet another jazz festival — organizers of the Dubai Jazz Festival have announced that the band will headline the 2013 event. As their appearance is scheduled for February 21, this will predate the down under tour and moves forward the tentative date for the tentative live premiere of the new material. The festival will run from February 14th to the 22nd at the Festival Park, Dubai Festival City.

To promote the band’s appearance in the region, Al Bawaba has a rather interesting interview with Ian Gillan:

How do you keep up the enthusiasm and energy over the tours and the years? What’s the secret?

Well, I don’t really know. We never planned this far ahead. Possibly it’s the way we set ourselves up in the beginning. We had no ambition, except to make the band as good as possible. Every street where I lived in the south of England had a band, so you try and steal the guitar player or the drummer from the band in the next street, just to improve your own band and all we cared about was just playing music that we loved. We didn’t give much thought to image, in fact we don’t have a publicist — never had one — and we never [gave] thought to the normal business things. So there’s a basic simplicity to the ethos of the band which has survived and I don’t think it’s changed in any way. The music’s kinda matured with us — it’s grown up a little bit I suppose — but it’s still got all the energy and enthusiasm that we had as kids. Apart from that, I couldn’t answer your question because I’m too close to it. All I know is that it’s full of energy and we still love it.

And on the much debated topic of the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame nomination:

Befitting the success Deep Purple has achieved, the band has been nominated for the Rock’n’roll Hall of Fame. How much of an honour is this, or is it?

(Laughs.) Without being asked I was nominated for an MBE a little while ago and I was a bit fed up with these sorts of things and then I rationalised the situation. When I was a kid, the last thing that I wanted was to be institutionalised and sort of fought against the establishment all my life. However, when I had a chance to think about the nomination I realised I saw people getting excited about it around me and I realised it’s for family and friends and it’s not for me alone, it’s for the people who have supported us all through these years particularly through the bad times. So I look at it in a different way now,with a certain amount of humility.

Read more in Al Bawaba.

Caveat: at the time of this writing (November 22), this appearance has not been confirmed by the band’s management.

Ritchie Blackmore has donated a signed Stratocaster to a charity auction. Proceeds from the sale will go to the Sweet Relief Eastern Musicians Fund to provide food and medicine to the victims of hurricane Sandy that devastated big part of the Eastern US seaboard about three weeks ago. Current bid is at $2,161 and the auction will run until December 11.

Thanks to Marcel for the info.

Roger Glover has posted another progress report on the state of the new Deep Purple album:

As I stated in the last missive, after five weeks the band left Nashville with fourteen tracks all but complete. The only thing missing was the vocals. IG had several ideas floating around but only one or two were considered complete. So a few weeks later, at his invitation I flew to Portugal, where he regularly hangs out, and spent a week with him working on the lyrics and tunes. It truly was a refreshing time and it felt like we had been transported back to the 60s when we first started writing together. It was relaxed but positively focused and we came away feeling pretty good.

Read the whole thing on RogerGlover.com

The old management company Deep Purple (Overseas) (who have also managed Rainbow in 1975-78) have released a short documentary video originally made in 1976 to promote the band:
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The two Blackmore’s Night shows that had to be postponed due to hurricane Sandy have now been rescheduled for December 9 in Wilmington, Delaware, and December 12 in New York City. Original tickets are valid for the new dates.

Deep Purple have appeared on November 14 on French TV show Culturebox. Ian Gillan was interviewed and they did a wonderfully light, airy (pun intended), jazz rendition of Smoke on the Water live:

Thanks to Leray and Andrey Gusenkov for the info. Video courtesy of francetv.fr.

Deep Purple, Nantes, Pruillé (France, 11th November 2012).
Even sometimes are screaming was dropped as highway star it was a very good gig.
The show was energetic and fresh.I totally agree with the post from Grenoble,for Ian Paice and Ian Gillan.The drums solo was amazing and Ian Gillan was also in a fine form as Roger,Steve and Don who has played”Dans les prisons de Nantes”.
Audience:5500.
The crow was happy and enthousiastic..
Higlighs:Hard loving man,The mule,no one came, Space trucking,Hush,Black night.
Fireball is a good opening.
Thanks to the Deep.

As the summer festival dates continue to trickle in, Deep Purple’s management has confirmed that the band will headline the Getaway Festival in Sweden on August 10, 2013. Festival passes are already on sale.