Members of Whitesnake have donated several items to a charity auction for the benefit of Y&T bass player Phil Kennemore, who is battling metastatic cancer. Items available are Doug Aldrich’s Fender Telecaster, a 1987 tourbook signed by Coverdale, Coverdale/Page CD signed by both of them, and an original print of a photograph by Timothy Drury. The auction ends on December 31st.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

Billboard has an article about a new state of the art Jukasa Studios built last year on a native reservation in Canada, just an hour outside of Toronto. Enjoying the tax exempt status, the studio can save it’s clients paying the 13% Ontario tax on it’s services. Nick Blagona is the chief engineer and he’s been busy:

…Now, Jukasa’s chief engineer Nick Blagona is mixing Ian Gillan of Deep Purple’s new solo album there…

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

Rainbow’s Down to Earth album remaster will be released (presumably in the UK) at the end of January (on the 24th if you believe Classic Rock or on the 31st if you believe Amazon). The track list, however, seems to be finalized and will span 2CDs as follows.

CD1:

1. All Night Long
2. Eyes Of The World
3. No Time To Lose
4. Makin’ Love
5. Since You Been Gone
6. Love’s No Friend
7. Danger Zone
8. Lost In Hollywood
9. Bad Girl (single B-side)
10. Weiss Heim (single B-side)

CD2:

1. All Night Long (instrumental outtake)
2. Eyes Of The World (instrumental outtake)
3. Spark Don’t Mean A Fire
4. Makin’ Love (instrumental outtake)
5. Since You Been Gone (instrumental outtake)
6. Ain’t A Lot Of Love In The Heart Of Me
7. Danger Zone (instrumental outtake)
8. Lost In Hollywood (instrumental outtake)
9. Bad Girls (instrumental outtake)
10. Ain’t A Lot Of Love In The Heart
11. Eyes Of The World (instrumental outtake – take two)
12. All Night Long (Cozy Powell mix)

The “instrumental outtakes” are most likely from the instrumental demos that surfaced on the bootleg market a few years ago, allegedly originating from the late Cozy Powell’s estate.

Our favourite bass player shares some amusing travel anecdotage in his latest installment of Road Life:

One of the things that intrigues me about rock concerts – everyone afterwards has a different story to tell. Did the band suck? Weren’t they fantastic? They didn’t play the favourite song, the bass player’s cute, the sound was awful, the drummer rocked, they’re not as good as they used to be… the best band in the world!

Every single person in the room, be it a club or an arena, has had an adventure just getting there; the missed train, the last minute babysitter, meeting old friends, the weather, the broken-down car, the lucky parking, the lousy meal, the great seats, who’s got the tickets? Potential catastrophes and near misses, highs and lows – nights to remember. Sometimes shit happens but most people who have done this many times know the hows and wheres of attending a rock concert – what to prepare for and what to avoid, what to bring. The seasoned fans have it down; travel light, take only what you need – water, a bit of cash, phone, camera, lightweight clothing. On the other hand, casual fans can easily get confused just finding the right entrance, the right seats, disposing of their overcoats, locating toilets.

Musicians go through similar experiences, or rather we would if we didn’t have people to guide us through the maze of endless backstage corridors and concrete staircases. And our road stories are just as varied and memorable, at least the ones that I can remember, as anyone’s.

Continue reading at RogerGlover.com.

As the New Year approaches, here’s the summary of the upcoming tour dates we have lined up so far.

Glenn Hughes will do a brief tour of Brazil in December, rounding up the year with a 2 date public live debut of Black Country Communion in Wolverhampton and London.

Gillan will kick the year off with an orchestral tour of Germany, Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland. The tour is billed as “Rock Meets Classic” as Ian Gillan, Lou Gramm and Dan McCafferty will perform with the Bohemian Symphony Orchestra Prague conducted by Philipp Maier. Steve Lee from Gotthard was also on the bill, but he tragically died in an accident on October 5 this year.

Deep Purple are wrapping up their lengthy European tour leg and will reconvene in February in Mexico. We have two dates that went on sale so far: Zapopan and Mexico City. After that they’re off to Eastern Europe where they have 5 dates in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus at the end of March. These are not confirmed by the band’s management yet, although the Eastern European dates come from a pretty reliable source.

Jon Lord will perform his Concerto in Germany in May with various local orchestras. Three dates have been confirmed: Koblenz, Frankfurt and Stuttgart.

Then it’s the Deep Purple’s turn to do “the orchestra thing” as german promoter KBK has just announced four dates in July. There is a date in Italy snuck inbetween those, at a picturescue ancient Arena di Verona.

As usual, full details in our events calendar. Please email additions, corrections, tour info, etc to our tourdates editor.

Show started at 6pm with Philip Sayce’s brilliant power blues-rock trio. With a set essentially based on the Peace Machine LP, Sayce took the audience by surprise using his talent to set the field for Purple.

The oriental intro served by the new lightshow surprised the audience a few seconds just the time to hear Ian Paice running the Highway Star introduction. Don Airey’s Hammond and Morse’s driving solo punched into Le Zenith : smiling faces everywhere from 14 to … Powerful version.

Then came Hard Lovin’ Man : what a blast ! Morse and Airey again settled an apparently never ending song. I have to say that I was a little bit disappointed because Ian Gillan looked very tired last night. Ok, the band almost play every night and great Ian is no longer a young man but I have noticed a disturbing thinness and the loss of his voice and words constantly ( Maybe I’m a Leo, Perfect Strangers, Fireball and even Smoke showed sometimes the musicians playing alone ).

Maybe I’m wrong but Ian seemed to be in apnea during all the show using oxygen backstage to find back his voice… Let’s go back to the concert with a great version of Strange Kind of Woman, a terrific Rapture of the Deep and a quite heavy version of Silver Tongue. Fireball was a cataclysm : people looked totally knocked out !

Then Steve Morse slow down the set with Contact Lost followed by a medieval improvisation. Gillan came back on stage to take back Roger’s and Steve’s pick ups and launching a quite emotional version of When a Blind Man Cries. Not enough time to dry our eyes : Steve Morse has started The Well Dressed Guitar with people all hands up ! Great time as usual !

For now, I’m not quite sure of the order of the set : was Perfect Strangers before Almost Human or Lazy ? I can’t remember but it was great to here Almost Human and a well-introduced version of Lazy by Don Airey : seemed to see the ghost of Jon Lord… Nice Airey solo and an awesome Perfect Strangers minus an absent Ian Gillan.

No One Came was the best moment of this concert : heavy, loud and melodic at the same time. The closing section with heavy spotlights set the band on fire : these guys are the heaviest band on earth ! No need to use Ibanez or Yamaha material or having piercing and tatto’s ! Just five old pals blasting the scene ! Space Truckin’ was in the same mood with Roger’s playing terryfing the audience. Splendid version of Smoke… when we could hear Ian, a little bit lost at the middle of the song.

Then came a funky Hush and a heavy Black Night : Larry Graham / Roger Glover : we call it a draw ! But we know that the show is over, the last note of Black Night is still in the air that Ian Paice is up yet.

Hope that great Ian got some rest last night…

At the concert on November 27 in Hamburg’s Alsterdorfer Sporthalle the band played in front of a nearly sold out (7,000 people) audience. They had a surprise guest joining them just before the encores for Smoke on the Water. The Man In Black Jr — Jürgen Blackmore:

Also, be sure to check out truly excellent pictures from the show taken by Falk Simon.

Thanks to Yvonne Osthausen for the info.

After a few dates in Czech Republic, Poland and Belgium, and Lyon the day before, Deep Purple were in Montpellier on the 6th of november.

The show started very well with an italian support band called “The Running Birds” (their first song “Blast Me Away” is still in my head). Congratulations!

Then Deep Purple hit the stage, with Hard Lovin’ Man to open, which was a good “surprise” (even if i had seen it on this website before). Then, “Things I Never Said” came. It sounded really well, and i’ve been a bit disappointed to see the song was dropped from the setlist then. I remember Gillan laughed after forgetting the lyrics “i can’t remember, i can’t forget”, which was indeed quite funny.

All the show was great. To name a few highlights: No One Came with the strobe light. Good to hear Almost Human (great intro), Silver tongue. Perfect Strangers (my personal favorite) sounded so powerful…

Then it was time for the encores. Before going to the show, I had seen on The Highway Star that the song of the same name had been dropped from the setlist since the beginning of the tour. Also, while waiting in front of the Zenith before the show, people who were in Lyon the day before confirmed me that Highway Star hadn’t been played there. That’s to say I was really pessimistic…
What a great surprise to hear Steve Morse’s guitar screams!!! Highway Star??? Really??? Then Gillan started “Nobody gonna take my car i’m gonna race it to the grouuuuuuund…!”. No more doubts! I felt really lucky that they choose this show to play it again.

Then Hush and Black Night ended the show very well. And unfortunately it was already time to go.

Thank you very much to the band for nearly 2 hours of great music! As always with Deep Purple, you cannot be disappointed! You see they have pleasure and they really share it with the audience. Chapeau bas!

CD

Setlist:

Hard Lovin’ Man
Things I Never Said
Maybe I’m a Leo
Strange Kind of Woman
Rapture of the Deep
Fireball
Silver Tongue
Contact Lost
Steve Morse guitar Solo
When a Blind Man Cries
The Well Dressed Guitar
Almost Human
Lazy
No One Came
Don Airey keyboard Solo
Perfect Strangers
Space Truckin’
Smoke on the Water

Encore:
Highway Star
Hush
Black Night

The concert last night in Mannheim was simply brilliant. Everybody in good shape and good mood. Ian Gillan maybe with a slight cold, his screams “going away” towards the end…

Roger, Ian Paice, Steve Morse and especially Don Airey with great performances.

Set List the same as previous, they skipped “Things I never said” at the beginning, great versions of Hard Lovin´man, silver tongue, no-one came and Hush !

Sad to say that the venue was half full only, Marillion was not the right opener for DP, good performance but their times are over without Fish….

I will definitely go to Stuttgart also.

DB

Seventh time that I see the Purps in concert. The show was fresh and energetic. Enthusiastic crowd. They played loud.

Same list than Lyon with a great opener Hard Loving Man. The guys were in a fine form, even if Gillan had always some problems with his voice.

Highlights: Hard Loving Man, Rapture of the Deep, When a Blind Man Cries, Almost Human, Perfect Strangers, Lazy with great work from Don Airey.

Encore; Highway Star, Hush, Black night.

Lights show were also good. Two hours of happiness. Maybe nostalgia? Audience: 3500