For my second Deep Purple gig of this fall tour after Bordeaux (see review), I travelled to the rather medium city of Pau.

Deep Purple’s touring policy in France is quite amazing: Pau, Limoges, Lorient are minor cities where international rock artists rarely (not to say never) show up (although someone reminded me Robert Plant was here in 2006). The zenith was well filled, something like 3500 people were there (just a guess). My friends and I were in the center, just a few rows from the stage.

Canadian trio around guitarist Philip Sayce did a good warm-up job in a straight-between-the-eyes-rock n roll – style (with class and technique).

At 9 pm, Purple kicked off with Highway Star, and I was immediately relieved, because Ian Gillan had been seriously ill on the first couple of december shows, not fully recovering his excellent november shape in the first week of december: so here he was, and it wasn’t a sore throat, it was just Ian Gillan at his best.

Now let me tell something really unblievable: Ian Gillan reads my reviews on thehighwaystar.com. It has to be ! Evidence ? … I wrote in december 2009 Gillan should reconsider his style and just stop trying to sound like in 1972 (he was globally excellent but almost ridiculous on some spots of some songs, for instance the third verse of Space Truckin).

Now, in 2010, Gillan has finally read this brilliant moment of a fan’s well-meant advice and decided to go through an overall checkup of his vocal lines (rather than changing the songs). This got very obvious in Pau; Ian avoided most of the «neckbreakers», and just did what he felt was right in 2010: it’s what you’d call a rearrangement, no more, no less …

The result is glorious! Of course Gillan has lost much of his power, but that’s not so bad considering his wonderful voice, and so he does some of the high ones, but not all of them, and no one cares, because he’s just DAMN GOOD.

Gillan is an artist, not an athlete. Artists may change. Athletes get old. Gillan seems younger than 10 years ago.

By the way, Big Ian does’nt do any of the backstage stuff, he just drives off in a van right after the show. No more beer on the stage. Of course, he acts weird, which is often mistaken as drunkenness, whereas it’s just because he’s an old englishman (which are all weird, as everyone knows).

When Gillan rocks, the whole band’s on fire: the evening was a crescendo of frenzy, with the climax of Smoke on the Water (anybody who hasn’t noticed that this isn’t just a riff, but a great song ?).

It was a Deep Purple concert I enjoyed in an almost adolescent way, singing, jumping, just going wild, and man it feels good to be young again !

Fantastic performance …

Steve Morse have appeared at this year NAMM to do various endorsements and sometime inbetween them gave this quick interview (amidst lots of background noise) to vintagerock.com. Of interest to our readers is his reiteration that Deep Purple are going to start working on the new album “within the next 60 days” and that they might be touring the USA later this year. As far as the latter goes, perhaps it’s time for all purple-starved people this side of the pond to start bugging their local promoters.

Steve Morse and Dave LaRue jam at the NAMM’2011:

Thanks to vintagerock.com and TheGiggingMusician for the videos and to Blabbermouth for bringing them to your attention.

Encouraged by the success of the two earlier Purple Night shows in 2008 and 2009, this year Perfect Strangers of Finland fan club presents the In Rock-themed Purple Night 2011. The house band will play all the songs of this album, featuring several singers: A-P Louhelainen, Jukka Ilmonen, J.J.Hjelt, Michael Henneken, Kimmo Blom and Taage. In addition to the songs from the In Rock album the attendees will hear other evergreens and rarities from the long career of Deep Purple.

Purple Night 2011 will be opened with tributes to two other classic bands. ‘Eavier than ‘Umble, naturally, plays Uriah Heep. For this special occasion their vocalist Tiina Pesonen joins forces with guest soloist Jukka Ilmonen.

Void in Black covers Black Sabbath from Ian Gillan, Glenn Hughes and Ronnie James Dio era. They too, will feature two singers — Antti Railio, who sang in the winner choir conducted by the Stratovarius singer Timo Kotipelto in Finland’s Clash of the Choirs 2009, will join on stage the band’s own Nico Rauhala.

The In Rock house band brings together experienced Finnish professionals who have played not only in many top bands in Finland, like with Michael Monroe, but also on the Finnish tours alongsinde with Joe Lynn Turner, Graham Bonnet and Doogie White. The house band musicians are: Lacu Lahtinen (drums), Mika Lamminsivu (guitar), Klaus Wirzenius (bass) and Risto Lassila (keyboards).

Hosts: sportman Juha ‘Taikku’ Taivainen and PSOF lady Kirsi Pynnönen.

What: Purple Night 2011 – In Rock
When: 15 January 2011, show starts at 7.30 pm
Where: Tavastia Club, Helsinki, Finland
Tickets: Tiketti €12, €14 at the door.

Thanks to Sirpa Hammar for the info.

The “Dregs meets Transatlantic” project has finished it’s first studio session. They’ve recorded demos of 11 songs. Mike Portnoy was reporting daily on his forum. About Steve Morse:

And Steve is absolutely the greatest…I’ve known him forever (DT [Dream Theater] opening for Deep Purple in 98, The Dregs opening for DT in 00), but to be making music with him is really a bit of a dream come true for me….he really is a musical genius…the way he writes and composes and thinks is truly inspiring…and his playing, well that speaks for itself! (He is JP’s [John Petrucci’s] biggest influence afterall) Just to hear him soloing away over some progressions in today’s song gave me goosebumps!

Read more:

• Intro
• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Days 4 & 5
• Day 6
• Day 7
• Day 8

Thanks to Blabbermouth and Daniel Bengtsson for the info.

Steve Morse together with Craig Goldy, Chris Impellitteri and Victor Smolski (Rage) will be at the National Association of Music Merchants show on January 14th to do a signing session. The session is organized by Engl. The convention is held this year on January 13th to 15th at the Anaheim Convention Center in California.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

Steve “can’t just be sitting around” Morse has teamed up with multi-instrumentalist Neal Morse (no relation), his old buddy Dave LaRue, ex-Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, and vocalist Casey McPherson for a brand new, yet unnamed project which just has entered the studio to begin working on an album.

Blabbermouth has some quotes from Neal Morse on this new venture:

Last April I got together with Steve Morse to do some writing and to see what would happen with a collaboration between the two of us and how I went down to his house in Florida and spent some days with him, getting to know him and writing some music and we had a really good time. So we’ve been talking about doing a project together for a while.

There are some demos and some things that Steve and I did in April that we’ve worked on and so we’ll have some things to start with, but I think the plan is to get together and see what happens and write in the room.

We’re all excited about the project, but it is a bit of a mystery as to what will come. The vision is to do something a little more song-oriented and not quite so riffy, as one might expect. But still, of course, having the musical elements that people like Steve Morse, Dave LaRou, Mike Portnoy, and myself can provide.

We’ve mapped out about 10 days [in the studio for the project’s first session]. We’ll see what happens and see how much we can get done, if we can’t get the basics down enough for an album then we’ll have to continue on later.

Everyone’s schedules are a bit in flux and their very busy people so I don’t know how long it will take us to actually finish and release the record.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

Pittsburgh’s online outlet Iron City Rocks has an extended interview with Steve Morse which he gave in early December while being on tour in Southern France. The interview covers a lot of ground — from Dixie Grits — to Deep Purple — to Angelfire.

In the groundbreaking news department, Steve said that Deep Purple have a “writing session” booked at a Spanish studio some time in March, between Mexican and Russian dates.

You can listen to the podcast (episode 85) online from their website (mp3, 45MB).

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

Some time last year Ian Gillan was in Poland where he narrated a new documentary called Chopin — The Polish Years for the local company TV Project. The studio has released a teaser while putting final touches to the film. Expect to see it on a TV channel near you or on DVD in 2011.

Thanks to Yvonne Osthausen for the info.

Roger Glover writes about what’s been on his reading list recently in the new installment of Road Life:

Yet another story about the road, I hear you say. Is this guy obsessed or what? I suppose I am. The thing is, there will always be road stories because the road goes on forever. It’s not a place – it’s a way of life. It’s not a destination – it’s a journey, an odyssey, a means of discovery. You don’t ever really want to reach the end of it because then it’s all over. Arriving at somewhere is not the objective, getting there is what is important. Street, lane, boulevard, avenue… none of those words conjure up the mysterious images associated with the word “road”.

Continue reading on RogerGlover.com.

Black Country Communion’s setlist at the London’s Shepherd Bush Empire on December 30 by all accounts was the same as Wolverhampton. Here are a few rather good quality videos from the gig.

Song of Yesterday:

Medusa:

No Quarter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMFc0wLJLP4

Burn:

Thanks to omegalast800 for the video and to Daniel Bengtsson for bringing it to your attention.