Date: 2011-06-24
Venue: Greek Theater, Los Angeles, USA

June 24th saw the return of Purple to Southern California for the first time in nearly four years. This was my seventh time seeing them and third in this venue. They really come alive on this particular stage. It was by far the best performance I have experienced yet.

The addition of the orchestra served to act as one more layer in the overall Purple sound. Vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, string section, horn section, percussion. And what a sound the assembled musicians created. Huge props must be given to Deep Purple’s sound crew, because all the performers blended so very well together.

The set list pleased the casual fans and had a few surprises for hardcores.

Highway Star
Hard Lovin’ Man
Maybe I’m A Leo
Strange Kind of Woman
Rapture of The Deep
Woman from Tokyo
Contact Lost/Steve Morse solo
When A Blind Man Cries
The Well Dressed Guitar
Knocking At Your Back Door
Don Airey solo
Lazy
No One Came
Don Airey solo
Perfect Strangers
Space Truckin’
Smoke On The Water (with riffs from Mötley Crüe, Guns N’ Roses, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC!)

Encores:
Hush
Ian Paice solo
Roger Glover solo
Black Night (with riffs from Van Halen’s Jamie’s Cryin’ and Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll (Part 2) included!)

Highway Star set the stage for one mind blowing moment after another. I intentionally avoided reviews and set lists before the show, so Hard Lovin’ Man coming immediately after was quite unexpected and very welcome. The band didn’t let up until after the fourth song, when Ian gave a very quick mention of Rapture of the Deep to intro the title cut. The crowd’s response to it was quite strong, deservedly so as the band absolutely killed it with the performance. Ian’s voice was incredibly strong on this particular number. I would still love to hear what an entire set of songs from the four most recent albums would sound like.

The middle section of the concert was where things got serious from a performance perspective. Following Woman From Tokyo with its wonderful orchestral flourishes, Steve began the beautiful and plaintive notes of Contact Lost. This morphed into a stunning Morse solo that segued into an utterly haunting rendition of When A Blind Man Cries where he made the solo his own. The Morse spotlight continued with the one song I truly had to hear on this evening, The Well Dressed Guitar, with its made-for-group-and-orchestra sound demonstrated perfectly.

Next came one of the most amazing moments I’ve seen in a Deep Purple live show. Conductor Steven Bentley trading riffs with Steve Morse during the solo section of Lazy. Phenomenal just begins to describe it.

Up next was one of the biggest surprises for me personally, with the inclusion of No One Came, which to my memory is the first time I’ve been in the crowd and seen Purple perform this song live. Don Airey took center spotlight for a solo which led into Perfect Strangers, again among the best performances I’ve seen of this song and another made even better with the extra dynamics of the orchestra.

Despite blowing away the audience song after song, Purple were about to surprise many people who haven’t seen them live in many years with Steve’s “riffstory” intro to SOTW. A snippet of LA’s Mötley Crüe turned into nearly 90 seconds of the full band playing Guns N’ Roses’ Sweet Child o’ Mine, much to the delight of the LA crowd. A little Zeppelin and AC/DC and the 1, 2, 3 crunch of SOTW elicited the biggest cheer yet from the audience.

This being LA and with the Greek Theater nestled among multi-million dollar homes in Griffith Park, bands are on a strict curfew to finish on time, so the encore came quick. During Black Night, Morse snuck in the main riff from Van Halen’s Jamie’s Cryin’ and then twisted the song into Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll (Part 2) which had the expected effect of uproarious “HEYS!” from the crowd.

From the Well Isn’t That Odd But Cool Department, this was the second time in just a week, where I’ve been in a concert audience and sang Happy Birthday to someone on stage. The week before, 55,000 of us sang birthday wishes to U2’s manager Paul McGuinness in Anaheim, and the Purple fans sang it to conductor Steven Bentley. Also worth mentioning, I walked past actor Dolph Lundgren on his way to his seat in the fifth row.

It would be remiss not to mention opening act Ernie and The Automatics. I had intentionally not read anything about them so as to have an open ear for a new artist. Much to the surprise of many, The Automatics six-man lineup included Boston guitarist Barry Goudreau and drummer Sib Hashian. The Automatics performed a solid set of blues rock originals and closed with a Boston medley that had the previously seated audience dancing in the aisles.

This is an edited down version of the full review I did on my music blog. Please feel free to check it out by clicking my name!

Date: 2011-05-18
Venue: Kucukciftlik Park, Istanbul, Turkey

The stories about great journeys never get old, so let me tell you about a long journey, which took place in May, for Deep Purple’s concert in Istanbul.

I live in Tbilisi, Georgia, (Caucasus) and never miss a chance to see the band live if they get near my country. Thus I saw them in 2009, Istanbul, for the first time. then in 2010, Yerevan, for the second time.

In the February 2011 they announced new tour and one concert in Turkey. So, who the stupid would miss them? Not me. It seemed that everything was OK, but when the show time arrived It proved that I was in a big financial crisis (I’m just 22, so forgive me if I waste money stupidly). My Purple dreams faded away, what I could do was just to keep waiting for the next year’s tour schedule to catch them somewhere near Caucasus.

SURPRISE: 5 days before the show I receive an e-mail from Ian Gillan’s personal assistant, Sally, that she would make a gift of two concert tickets, If I managed to arrive in Turkey. The journey begins here. What I got was NO money for travelling and NO money for hotel. Who cares? in just ten minutes I was already teamed up with my hitchhiker friend (21 yrs old, who says that young people forgot DP?) for the next day we were on the way to Istanbul – with a camp, some vodka, beer and only for both us.

We began truly the most depressive and at the same time the most enjoyable journey in our life. The journey which destructed all the stereotypes about nations, human beings, human nature and all the troubles you can meet abroad. Depressing, because during the hitchhiking we had several occasions, when some ugly people forced us and took away tens of bucks from us. So that we were left almost with no money in the foreign country with 1500km left till Istanbul. (and 2,000km back from it). For some minutes we thought it was the end, that those stereotypes about Turkish people were right etc. But no way! Nations are nations and human beings are human beings. We were robbed by one man, but excitingly helped by another. So, where’s the place for the national stereotypes? In the hell. With the help of several other Turks after 40+ hours looong loooong journey we arrived in Istanbul, at last.

Another thing to note: One man, nicknamed “Scorpions” breaded us a lot and helped to get truck till Istanbul. Frightened by the robbery, we couldn’t believe that absolutely stranger to us was making kind things for free. Then I thought to myself, oh, god, how the relations between people are worn out, that we couldn’t even believe that stranger man was doing some sweet things to us? Disgusting, right? But a good lesson.

Anyways, with the help of such people, after 40+ hours we arrived at the city. But sitting in a bus, looking at the picturesque views of Istanbul’s night was absolutely no joy for us – we were 1.5 hours late for the show! It meant that we either missed the whole show or we maybe could catch only encore. As soon as the bus arrived near the park where concert was taking place, we heard some loud, bombing voice in the city. “The show is not over – a good sign”. We quickly moved out of the bus and ran to the park like mads. I was wondering to hear which song was being played.

Surprise#2: It was Maybe I’m a Leo! Yeaaaaaaaou! The truth is that concert began 1.5 hours late and we arrived for the third song!

After a quick run at the backstage we met Sally, who was not expecting us to arrive anymore and began happy jumping, hugging and kissing. After a warm meet, we took our place straight in front of stage, drank some vodka & beer and for the next two hours our mad screaming was joined by several thousand people and a truly LOUD, bombastic sound of Deep Purple! After all this troubled journey and 1.5 hours late arriving we couldn’t, we simply couldn’t believe that we were there.

THE CONCERT itself was a great one, but frankly speaking, in a musical view Yerevan 2010 show was better, maybe because Gillan seemed a bit tired and I missed ROGER! The big bright eyes, the bombastic bass and an unique ability to make you enjoy the show. I didn’t felt comfortable with Nick Fyffe. It looked like he was doing just a routine job. I even didn’t felt that there was a bass player on stage.

After the show I met several Turkish friends who I knew from the 2009 concert and Kate, 26, a German fan who has seen 150 concerts of the band – all amazing people who I hope will meet me in Tbilisi, at Deep Purple’s concert anytime. We also took some pictures with Sally and Bron (Gillan’s wife).

All in all, it was the most memorable journey and night in my life. The most troubled and at the same time the happiest days.

For the second day we found out that there was almost no chance to get back by hitching! Shock! We were left alone,with no money and no bread in the city of nearly 20 million people. I felt like lost one pixel in the whole world…but the story of mankind goodness repeated: one Georgian man bought us bus tickets and after 30 hours we were back to home!

Regarding to the bad announcement of the possible retiring for the next year, which Gillan revealed in interview with several journalist, now I’m sitting and keep thinking: how can this band retire, while they have all the magic, which drives millions of fans to travel to see them live? How can Deep Purple retire, while they have all the magic, which can make people HAPPY by the two-hour concert? No way.

Just keep on going and we’ll be there, with you. Either by plane or by hitching, who knows.

Roger Glover’s new solo album If Life Was Easy is due to be released on July 8 by Edel/earMUSIC. Here is a sneak preview:

Preorder it from a store near you:

Please note that the British store won’t start shipping it until August 1.

Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov for the info.

Martin Popoff has a new book out, titled The Deep Purple Royal Family: Chain Of Events Through ’79. Instead of trying to write something about the thing we have not seen, here is the complete press release straight from the author:

The Text:

280 stuffed pages offering an exhaustive and detailed timeline of Purple milestones, often to the day, including some similar bands, influences, cultural milieu, tour stuff, recording sessions, charts, singles, certification news, break-ups, personal stuff, trivia for miles, and lots and lots of artist quotes to add to the entries, turning the book into a quasi-oral history but loaded with factual matter. But as you’ve noticed, this is about FAMILY. So the text weaves, in and out of the story of Purple proper, the dastardly diaries of Rainbow, Whitesnake, Ian Gillan Band, Gillan, Paice Ashton Lord, all the solo projects, guest slots, even Captain Beyond, Warhorse, Jerusalem, Jesus Christ Superstar, Bedlam, Elf, Episode Six, Outlaws, and Pussy. And when I felt it mattered to the story, there’s touchdowns to the likes of Heep, Sabbath, Zeppelin, Nazareth, Moxy, Silverhead, Hard Stuff, Trapeze, Lord Sutch, Warpig, Vanilla Fudge, Brian Auger, Judas Priest, James Gang, Angel and Legs Diamond, always with contextual explanation plus the odd rare and very cool archival advertisement.

The Graphics:

A blazing 542 of them, usually rare, archival, historical shots of record ads, LP and 45 sleeves, tour posters and newspaper notices, ticket stubs, endorsement ads, tour program covers, foreign country releases, and again, contextual things like, say, an ancient Hammond or Marshall ad, studio ads, weird business stuff. Seriously, the crazy, creative old ’70s ads, and the hype copy on them – that’s why I wanted to do this book. It’s a gallery, flowed and framed by fully 41,000 words of beautifully displayed timeline, which brings us to.

The Design:

This book marks my first project with awesome Calgary-based designer Bill Harris, and what he’s created for the look of this thing is top-flight, eminently readable, a pleasure to flip through and touch down upon the trivia and the rare pictures from deep Deep history. You’ll love it – a huge step up for my books.

The books can be ordered straight from the source, although this one appears not to be listed yet. Email Martin for any further questions. The cost including shipping is:

• US orders: $35.00 US funds
• Int’l orders (surface mail): $39.00 US funds
• Int’l orders (air mail): $45.00 US funds
• Canadian orders: $38.00 Cdn. funds

Paypal, personal checks in US funds, cash, or international money orders accepted. Yes, as far as we know, he accepts payments in Canadian dollars as well.

Amazing, but true. Geoff Barton writes in the Classic Rock Magazine blog:

Steve Morse has become the longest-running guitarist for Deep Purple, having joined the band in 1994.

Morse’s unbroken 17-year tenure beats founding guitarist Ritchie Blackmore’s stints with the band from 1968-1975 and 1984-1993 (we make that 16 years).

While Geoff didn’t quite get his math right, the undisputable fact is still there.

The first known Deep Purple gig was on April 20, 1968 in Tastrup, Denmark. This started Blackmore’s tenure in the band which lasted uninterrupted until that Paris gig on April 7, 1975. Which makes it 2,543 days or 6 years, 11 months, and 18 days. News of the reunion were announced some time in April 1984, however if we stick to the live dates, the first show was on November 27, 1984 in Perth, Australia. The “second coming” lasted until Helsinki on November 17, 1993. Which makes it for another 3,277 days or 5,820 days in total.

Now, the first gig Steve played as a member of Deep Purple was on November 23, 1994 in Mexico City. As of today (June 29, 2011) this makes him Deep Purple’s guitar palyer for 6,062 days or 16 years, 7 months, and 6 days. He had surpassed Blackmore’s tenure on October 30, 2010. On that date he (what else!) played a gig with Deep Purple at the Spodek arena in Katowice, Poland.

Some people might argue that in 1968 the band started much earlier and in 1984 they’ve spent the whole summer recording. Okay, let’s be generous to Ritchie and say that the band started on, let’s say, February 1, 1968 and the reunion happened on April 1, 1984. That’s 2,622 + 3,517 = 6,139 days. This only means that the drum roll would be postponed by a couple of more months. No matter how you look at it.

Thanks to Editor Emeritus Dave Hodgkinson for the info, to Martin Ashberry and his Live Index for the dates, and to the Date Difference Calculator for number crunching.

Coinciding with the North American release, AOL is now streaming the whole Phoenix Rising CD online. It can be listened to at this location. If you get a Beyonce CD instead, wait until the whole page finishes loading. And never mind the screwed up track listing, after all it’s a record company we’re dealing with. 😉

Order from a store near you:

DVD+CD

CD+DVD

Blue ray

Date: 2011-06-23
Venue: Pearl Theatre, Las Vegas, USA

A June day in Las Vegas, Neveda. 108f. Walk to the site of the show. Only 4km. Stopped and picked up 2 bottles of water. 1 liter each. 45 minutes later I have reached the Pearl Theatre. Only a few ounces left in my second bottle. Too hot to drink. Drop it into the trash. Stroll inside. As everywhere else here, a Casino. Walk past the slot machines and reach the Theatre. Seems like a small Movie theatre.

Walk back to my motel, picking up 2 more bottles of water along the way. One thing you notice. No sweat. It vaporates. The heat here is deceptive. I take a shower and change of clothes. Grab a bite to eat. Go back to my room to rest. The Doors open at 1900. I leave at 1800. Reaching the Theatre with 10 minutes to spare.

Talking to fellow fans, I am surprised at the number of fans hoping they will play songs from the bands last 4 albums. The songs I hear mentioned the most are “Ted the Mechanic” and “Sometimes I feel like screaming”

The Opening act was Eddie and the Automatics. They blew the roof off. The Sax player was a personal friend of the late great Clarence Clemons. He gave a very emotional eulogy followed by a song he played in the movie “Eddie and the Cruisers” the entire soundtrack of that movie was very Springsteen influenced. The song was “On the Dark Side”. Featured a haunting emotionally charged Sax solo, with the player, Michael “Tunes” Atunes crying as he played with all he could summon. The Lead guitar player and the drummer had been with the group BOSTON. The act ended with 5 Boston songs bring the house to their feet.

It took the stage crew less that 30 minutes to clear the stage. The lights dimmed and the Orchestra strolled out and took their seats. The first thing you noticed was 70% of them were young beautiful ladies. The Conductor took his place, tapped the stand and away we went.

The only change being the usual 6th spot and the usual 10th spot. On the US leg we have “Woman from Tokyo” then “Knockin’ at your backdoor”. As always the band played brillantly. Gillan’s voice was STRONG! The best well received portion of the show was the “Contact Loss” “WABMC” and “WDG.” Don’s portion of the evening was another highlight. “Perfect Strangers” was impressive. Then we got “Lazy”. What maded this so good was the Conductor played a Violin solo and got into a lick for lick with Steve. A win win for everyone. The next song that caught me off guard, because I feel it need’s to be put out to pasture with a few other old warhorses was “Space-Truckin”. It was a hard hitting rocker that was played straight ahead leaving me breathless. I came away with a new found respect for that number!

This was followed what has become the “Bring the house down number” around the world. SOTW. As noted by others, the band has been a little caught off guard by the lack of a explosion on the audience’s part. They tend to view it as another great song. The song that get’s the reaction the group is looking for is “Hush”. Hush was a huge hit here in the States back in ’68 and is still in most Radio Stations song rotations.

“Hush” is part of the Encore. Which started off with “Going Down”, “Hush” and another crowd pleaser “Black Night”. All in all a great show. Perfect view and sound. I had a chance to move and stand at the Stage-no security guards- I was on Steve’s side. Facing him from the 4th row. To move there would have block the view of a elderly couple that was there with their two daughters both in their late 50s. A few others had stood in front of them but, out of consideration moved. So, I stayed put. No harm. Steve looked dead at me. He was throwing out Picks. I held out my arm for the throw. It sailed wide left. He shrugged as if, “oh well”. Another personal highlight for me was Ian Gillan pointing at me. He had glanced at me,so I waved. That was when he pointed and nodded. I will remember. Of course, that was Thursday. They played last night and tonight ends the tour. Quite a few people were doing the Trilogy. All three West Coast shows. The guy sitting in front of me was staying to see RUSH in Vegas last night then DP tonight.

I got to see them. Up close and personal.
I was and I am satisfied….till next time.

While in New York, Steve Morse spoke to Joe Bosso of Music Radar with the extensive interview now appearing on their web site:

The band is currently working on a new record. How far along are you with things?

We’ve got the music pretty mapped out for the majority of the recording. The goal on this album isn’t to stretch out to new heights; it’s more about revisiting the roots – riff-oriented blues rock. Heavy stuff, you know?

I know you said the band encouraged you to be yourself on stage, but when writing with the group, is the atmosphere the same?

No, writing for Deep Purple is much different than playing with them on stage, and it’s very different from writing for a Steve Morse solo album. I think it’s good for musicians to understand the particular situation they’re in and what’s expected of them. The band wants me to come up with lots of ideas, the vast majority of which never get used.

My way of doing that has been a bit of a shotgun approach: I just hit them with tons of ideas and see what really sticks. One thing I like to do – and I’ve encouraged the rest of the guys to do this, too – is to only bring in snippets of things, not finished tunes, because people might only like this bit or that bit. They might not like an entire song. Giving them sections is a cool way for everybody to contribute and truly make a song ‘Deep Purple.’

Read more in Music Radar. There’s lots more and it’s interesting stuff.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

The budding anthropologist in me (with no thanks to Dr. Brennan) says — here’s a fine specimen of the infamously dry British humour:

Thanks to Deep Purple YouTube channel for this gem.

Date: 2011-03-23 and 25
Venue: Olimpiysky Sports Complex (Moscow) and IEC (Kiev)
Moscow, Russia and Kiev, Ukraine

This year I decided to go and see two Deep Purple gigs in the same tour – in Moscow where I live and in Kiev. They were my 6th and 7th Deep Purple concerts correspondingly. My desire to see Kiev and the fact that there was also a concert of Nazareth on the same weekend were two other good reasons which made the decision to travel from Moscow to Ukraine much easier.

The concert in Moscow was on Wednesday, 23rd of March. It was announced to start at 19.00 which is very early for the business day, and therefore I had to run from work to be on time for the gig. Luckily there was a local support band playing, so I was not late for Deep Purple. By the time my friend and I entered the venue, which is a huge sports complex, the house was full. The audience being not very excited with the performance of the local band was impatiently waiting for the legends to appear on stage.

Deep Purple started to play at 20.00. With the first chords of Highway Star the crowd exploded! We managed to take a good position in the standing stalls to the right from the center of the stage, just a few rows from the front. Looking around at the crowd and seeing their happy faces singing together I couldn’t be other than happy myself. This kind of crowd unity filled with positive energy and mutual happiness always impresses me!

The gig’s set list was the same as in the previous concerts of the tour:

Highway Star
Hard Lovin’ Man
Maybe I’m a Leo
Strange Kind of Woman
Rapture of the Deep
Silver Tongue
Contact Lost
When a Blind Man Cries
The Well Dressed Guitar
Almost Human
Lazy
No One Came
Keyboard Solo
Perfect Strangers
Space Truckin\\’
Smoke on the Water

Encores:

Hush
Bass Solo
Black Night

As I was following different reviews (including from my family and friends) about the latest gigs in other Russian cities (Yekaterinburg and St Petersburg) where the band played before Moscow, I was very much looking forward to the concert in Moscow and was wondering how Ian Gillan would sound (because of the different information from the previous gigs). And I must say Ian sang very well! It seemed to me that his singing was much better and stronger than in Samara last year. Though it may be due just as much to the sound settings and the position at the concert.

Steve and Don, as always, impressed me with their solos. Steve’s solo though was much calmer this time, without extra difficult passages, like before. It was an incredibly beautiful solo, very pleasant to the ears, but I wish it was balanced with some more active and virtuous guitar riffs. However, Steve showed his high guitar technique in the songs performance. Highway Star and The Well Dressed Guitar are the good examples. Gillan, as usual, during the latter song stood behind Morse and clapped his raised hands supporting Steve, and the crowd, of course, followed Ian by doing the same.

It was great in general to see how the musicians support and cheer each other during the gig, always smiling and interacting with the crowd charging us with the positive energy.

Don’s solo was fantastic, so powerful and diverse, that one moment the crowd was standing still and the other moment it was exploding with excitement. By the end of the solo Don played some low-pitched sound chords which made all the venue vibrating, and it seemed like the earthquake was about to start! Impressive! Hearing the famous classic tunes and the local song was also a pleasant part of the Airey’s performance.

It’s a pity that there was no Paice’s solo. However Ian was great even without it.

The new thing for me was Glover’s solo accompanied with Paice’s drums before the last song. Roger was sounding and looking superb! I like this musician very much; he is so kind and positive that it is visible even from the stage! In the end of the concert I caught Roger’s guitar pick which magically jumped off my hand and then flew back again. My friend also caught a guitar pick almost the same moment as I, which was thrown by Steve Morse. Her little hand was almost injured by the big boot while she was trying to get it from the floor, but in the end we both were standing happily with the guitar picks in our hands.

We got to meet with Don, Roger and Steve after the concert, and as the night before they had dinner with President Medvedev, they have shared their positive impressions from the meeting with us. In 30 minutes meeting they got to talk about rock music, politics and football, and the son of the President played guitar for them.

In the evening of the next day my other friend and I took a night train to Kiev to be on time for the next concert, on Friday, 25th of March.

When we arrived to the venue one hour in advance, we were caught off guard by the long line outside the venue. While we were waiting in the line the local support band was playing. Unfortunately we missed them, and later I found out that the band was quite good, and Don Airey even called them Ukrainian R.E.M.

Kiev’s venue was also a huge one, but it was a big exhibition center, so the acoustics there was not as good as in the venues specially made for concerts. We took a very good position in front of the stage, closer to the middle, and therefore I was even more happy and excited at the gig than in Moscow. However, this time Gillan’s vocals could be heard worse. Being closer to the stage we could also see that his shape is not as good as the shape of the rest musicians in the band. Nevertheless, the general impression about the gig was very good. Singing along Steve’s guitar during the Highway Star Ian sounded impressive!

I would also like to mention how the band acted when the security tried to push the crowd hard back (although the crowd didn’t really push forward): Ian Gillan and Steve Morse first with gestures and later with other methods tried to let the security know that it is not necessary to act so harshly towards the crowd. Musicians asked someone from their crew to talk to the security, but it didn’t work, so finally during one of the songs Ian without stopping singing a song went backstage, took his towel there, came back to the stage and thrown it into the security guy to attract his attention. In between the songs he also asked them from the stage to stop pushing us. The way the musicians acted really impressed me, and at the same time I was upset that these inhuman unnecessary methods are still used by the concert security in Kiev. They reminded me of my hometown concert security 10 years ago.

As about the rest, the show was similar to the gig in Moscow and other cities of the tour. I am very happy I got to see two of them – I’ve got twice as much positive emotions and happiness!

I’ve got to meet with Don, Roger, Steve and Ian Paice after the show. The band was very kind and sociable, as always. Don Airey was especially generous and kind to us and other guests (including the support band) doing everything to make us feel comfortable. We got to catch Paicey just before he left, and asked him, why there was no drums solo this time. Ian said he does enough work without it. Well, I completely agree with him!

I wish the great musicians good health and inspiration, and will wait for their next tour here.