Deep Purple started it’s tour of Ukraine and Russia. On October 12 in Dnepropetrovsk they were greeted at the local airport by two girls in traditional costumes, welcoming the band with an ornate loaf of bread and a capella folk songs. This turned into an unexpected jam when Steve Morse pulled out his guitar to provide instrumental accompaniment for the singers.

Setlist for the most shows have been so far:

• Pictures of Home
• Things I Never Said
• Into The Fire
• Strange Kind of Woman
• Rapture of The Deep
• Contact Lost
• Well Dressed Guitar
• Mary Long
• Wring That Neck
• The Battle Rages On
• Don Airey solo
• Perfect Strangers
• Space Truckin’
• Highway Star
• Smoke On The Water
• Hush ~ Ian Paice Solo
• Black Night ~ Roger Glover Solo

Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming was also played in Cherkassy on October 17.

More pictures:

• Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, October 12: airport and hotel, concert
• Kiev, Ukraine, October 15
• Voronezh, Russia, October 20

Thanks to SubAqua and www.deep-purple.ru for the info.

In his latest installment of Notes from the road Steve Morse talks about his pet peeve — air travel, reminisces on the last tour leg, and touches on the topic that stirred so much controversy in THS comments:

Afterward, I was upset to learn that some bloggers had chosen to politicize, or criticise the band’s show being in Russia, forgetting that we play pretty much everywhere in the World for people. Generally, we just like music lovers, that’s all we ask for, doesn’t much matter geographically where, just as long as there are human beings who want to hear our music.

Read more on Stevemorse.com.

Thanks to Daniel Bengtsson for the info.

Crossword puzzles, Ritchie’s mother in law, and the Big Bang theory — what do they have in common? Read on. A very entertaining interview with Ian Gillan done by George Anasontzis.

Thanks to Kevin Dixon for the info.

Deep Purple’s appearance at The Sunflower Jam turned into a very different show, high on improvisation and special guests.

Introduced by Yes’ Rick Wakeman, Deep Purple got under way with Pictures of Home and a pumping start.

– That’s Johnny Lord!, exclaimed Ian Gillan after Hush with an extended solo from Jon Lord – and then Gillan introduced Wring That Neck from The Book of Taliesyn – ‘I must have been only 15 in those days.’

For the encores of their 65-minute set, Deep Purple were joined by Bruce Dickinson and Ade Omotayo from Amy Winehouse’s band. Together they did a rare version of Little Richard’s Lucille.

Read the full report and see all the photos at JonLord.org.

Roger Glover has contributed one of his paintings to Status Quo’s ‘Pictures’ Auction, which is taking place on November 5th at Bonhams in London. Proceeds of the sale will go to British charity Prince’s Trust.

Entrance to the auction will be strictly by invitation only, but from 1 October all of the paintings are viewable online. Online bidding for is available on Prince’s Trust website. Online bidding will finish at midday on November 5 and the highest bids will be transferred to the auction room with the highest online bidders given the opportunity to continue bidding.

Further information available on Status Quo’s website.

Roger’s painting is at Lot 14 and at the time of this writing highest bid for it is £45.

Thanks to Mike Paxman for the info.

Richard Hugh and Candice Lauren were pronounced husband and wife at 4:48 pm on October 5, 2008, at a small gathering of friends and family.

Update [Oct 15]: pictures from the wedding are available on Candice Night’s website. More pictures here.

Thanks to Mike Garrett for the info.

Yngwie ‘Unleash The Fury’ Malmsteen talks in a recent interview about Purple being his major influence:

How do you write? Music is in your blood isn’t it – are you the sort of guy that has music flowing through you all the time?

Well, in fact, it’s hard for me to listen to anything without hearing it as a producer does. You know, I wouldn’t have put that snare there or in that way. I can sit at home or anywhere and hear something and grab my guitar and start working with it. It was like when I first heard Deep Purple’s Fireball. My sister gave me Fireball and I was like, ‘wow’, and I went out and bought In Rock. I was eight years old and by the time I was ten I could play note for note Made In Japan. In fact I heard Made In Japan before I heard Machine Head. When I did hear Machine Head I thought ‘mmm this sounds quiet you know’.

Now I’m getting a bit out of my depth here, but I would say your music is more Bach or Vivaldi influenced than, say, Purple.

Let me tell you, yesterday I was doing something for television with VH1 and their thing was to ask everyone, ‘who was the most influential heavy rock band Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin?’ When it came to me I said Deep Purple. They looked at me like I was crazy. But it was hearing the power of In Rock that did it. I can remember seeing Hendrix on television and watching him burn his guitar. Then I listened to In Rock and that was it. I knew what I wanted to be.

In case you’re interested, the interview is in Blogcritics Magazine.

Peter Brkusic (drummer from Nasty Habits) writes:

I’m very sorry that I must inform you that the 3 shows from Nick Simper & Nasty Habits in November in Austria and Germany are cancelled. We are very sorry for all the fans who are waiting to see us but Nick has very serious private reasons for that.

We hope to play this shows in spring next year.

We all at The Highway Star sincerely hope that the “very serious private reasons”, whatever they are, will not turn out to be really serious and the gigs will be rescheduled next year.

Good luck to Nick and the Nasty Habits.

Deep Purple were joined by Jon Lord for five songs at this year’s Sunflower Jam on Thursday evening in London.

Photo copyright: Rasmus Heide

Long versions of Hush and Wring That Neck made sure fans of Jon Lord’s Hammond style were sent home happy.

Ian Gillan had the flu and as a consequence the band reshuffled the setlist to include more instrumental pieces:

Pictures Of Home
Strange Kind Of Woman
Hush – w/Jon Lord
Wring That Neck – w/Jon Lord
Mary Long
Highway Star
Contact Lost
Steve Morse solo
Well Dressed Guitar
Smoke On The Water – w/Jon Lord + Bruce Dickinson
Black Night – w/Jon Lord + Bruce Dickinson
Lucille – w/Jon Lord + Bruce Dickinson

A quiet family dinner next to a charity event at a Portuguese resort Santa Barbara De Nexe turned into an impromptu performance for Gillan. The Portugal News Online reports (complete with mistakes and misspelling):

As diners dug deep in their pockets for an Albufeira based children’s charity, former Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillham, who had been dining privately with his wife and daughter, was encouraged to provide an impromptu performance of one of the greatest rock classics of all time, ´Smoke On The Water´.

Ian was backed on guitar by resident local musician Howard Scott Parkin who jumped at the opportunity to play with the Deep Purple front man if only for one song.