As perhaps the international rock act that has visited us most times in the recent years, Deep Purple once again arrived in Brazil for the third visit in the rather long Rapture of the Deep tour.

A Deep Purple gig is always something very rewarding. The band clearly love what they do, with 40 years of experience on their back, and oozing technical skills and feeling in equal proportions. The repertoire has been mounted on a well balanced mix of classics and newer stuff, as already reported by others in this forum. The classics couldn’t be left out of the concert, like the indefectible “Highway Star”, “Black Night”, “Strange Kind Of Woman”, ”Space Truckin’”, “Lazy”, “Pictures Of Home” and “Smoke On The Water”. It is clear that at least here in Brazil the Purps managed to “renew” their public, and lots of teenagers are seen in the audience, most of them probably seeing the band live for the very first time. This surely helps a lot to build the excitement.

In any way, for the old hardcore fans (amongst whom I include myself) a couple of unusual songs are always inserted for good measure. This time, the selected few were “Into The Fire” from “In Rock” and “Mary Long” from “Who Do We Think We Are”, along with “The Battle Rages On” from the album of the same title. A song that has become a classic and is always sung in unison by the public, “Perfect Strangers” couldn’t be left out as well. It has achieved a “classic” status here in Brazil, and Gillan’s voice was sometimes inaudible due to the audience’s reaction and singing (no complains there!).

From recent years, no big surprises, and instrumentals such as “Contact Lost” and “The Well-Dressed Guitar” were included in the midst of Steve Morse’s solo and riff parade. From “Rapture of the Deep” the choices were the same as in previous years: “Things I Never Said”, “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye” and the great “Rapture of the Deep” and its oriental-music-based melodies, almost sounding like Morse-era’s “Perfect Strangers” in terms of style and “stage effectiveness”.

Some details, though, diminished the full enjoyment of the experience this time. The opening act was correct and solid but nothing more than that, a Brazilian hard rock band called Inquisição (yes, you got it, “Inquisition”). After that, a huge delay followed allegedly due to problems with equipments being stuck in São Paulo, before coming to Rio.

Only after 11:30pm the Purps came on stage, looking a bit tired and playing a somewhat bureaucratic set. Hence the reduced setlist: “Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming” and “Hush” (and Paicey’s drum solo) were sacked. Well, at least we didn’t lose “Loosen My Strings”, a song that at least I was expecting to see performed live here.

That said, Deep Purple in their not-so-good days are still able to play a very good show, and so it happened. Gillan’s voice was good but he was clearly avoiding the high notes. I guess age made him wiser in that respect! Always fun, though, to see him on stage, a man of great charisma indeed. Morse and Airey playing was as always in top form, and the same can be said about Glover and Paice, but being honest, now I am looking forward to a new studio album and a new setlist, as everything begins to become a bit obvious and this is clearly contradictory when it comes to Purple!

Setlist:
– Pictures Of Home
– Things I Never Said
– Into The Fire
– Strange Kind Of Woman
– Rapture Of The Deep
– Mary Long
– Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
– Contact Lost
– Steve Morse guitar solo
– The Well-Dressed Guitar
– The Battle Rages On
– Lazy
– Don Airey keyboards solo
– Perfect Strangers
– Space Truckin’
– Highway Star
– Smoke On The Water

Encore:
– Roger Glover bass solo
– Black Night

For those who already lost track, this was the eighth time the band came to play here, and it is worth mentioning that during the last five years they came a total of four times. Considering that Purple had never visited this neck of woods until their first South American tour in 1991 (“Slaves & Masters” tour), it is quite an achievement. The other visits happened in 1997 (“Purpendicular” tour), 1999 (“Abandon” tour), 2000 (“Concerto” tour), 2003 (“Bananas” tour), and then 2005 and 2006 (both as part of the “Rapture of the Deep” tour).

As always before, when I had the chance to see Deep Purple in my country, it was magical, wonderful, engergetic, fantastic, simply perfect!

As a rarity for me I have the privilege of hearing Mary Long live for first time.

I got a ticket for next Sunday also. I’m very happy and expect to see them many more times in the future.

Long live Deep Purple!

Hernan

Bad news in the family.

Canadian blues guitarist Jeff Healey has lost his lifelong battle with cancer. He was 41. Jeff’s uniquely emotional playing earned him respect and admiration from fans and musicians around the globe. For the last few years he had been in ailing health and was a resident player at his blues club in downtown Toronto. He guested on Gillan’s Inn album and when the tour hit the city, came on stage to play on Sugar Plum and When a Blind Man Cries. Jeff knew first hand what the latter song is all about as he lost his eyesight as a child to a rare form of retinal cancer.

Wolf Schneider remembers:

I remember seeing him years and years ago when he was a teenage kid, getting led up onstage by his girlfriend to play a short opening set before a Tres Hombres (they were a ZZ Top tribute act in the early 80’s) show at Larry’s Hideaway, and my first reaction was huh, he’s certainly holding that guitar weirdly; my second was to pick my jaw up off the floor and pay full attention to what he was putting down. Just like with Jimmy Bowskill 20 years later, you knew you were witnessing amazing talent at an astoundingly young age, and i knew at that moment he had one hell of a career ahead of him.

Thanks to Glenn Miller, Tom Jory and Mark Brazeau for the info.

PS. Here are a few more bits and pieces of the magic that was a guitar on Jeff Healey’s lap:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJh3KaIKDAw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqU9RZqvFKY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIZywo3PBTE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xykErHeSu0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBBCJ68mC4c

You know, after watching all this you don’t need to know him to find what kind of person he is. His music speaks for him. He was one of those people about whom Leo Tolstoy wrote “he was too good to live”. Rest in peace, Jeff. You’re in rock’n’roll heaven now, jamming with Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, George Harrison and SRV…

The recent Deep Purple’s visit to Moscow was not all glitz, glamour and rubbing shoulders with rich and powerful. Russian promoters SAV Entertainment and Russkij Show Center have announced that during the band’s visit they have “reached an agreement” for another massive tour of Russia and Ukraine this October. The dates are very preliminary and itinerary is very much subject to change. So preliminary and so subject to change that in fact for now we are not even putting them in the tourdates list.

Oct 6 Kiev, Ukraine
Oct 7 Odessa, Ukraine
Oct 9 Rostov-na-Donu, Russia
Oct 10 Volgograd, Russia
Oct 12 Voronezh, Russia
Oct 14 Kazan, Russia
Oct 15 Yekaterinburg, Russia
Oct 17 Novokuznetsk, Russia
Oct 18 Krasnoyarsk, Russia
Oct 20 Vladivostok, Russia
Oct 21 Khabarovsk, Russia
Oct 23 Irkutsk, Russia
Oct 25 Novosibirsk, Russia
Oct 27 Moscow, Russia
Oct 29 St.Petersburg, Russia

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

A new box set titled Around The World Live is being prepared for release by Edel. The “Deluxe Edition” 4DVD box set is slated for release in UK on Edel’s subsidiary Eagle Vision on May 19, 2008. As of now, we have no info on availability and release dates in other markets.

DEEP PURPLE Around The World Live (2008 UK ‘Deluxe Edition’ 4-disc PAL DVD set) – This stunning set features three full Deep Purple concerts, highlights of a fourth, interviews with the band members and a new documentary telling the full Deep Purple story from their beginnings up to the present day with an emphasis on the Steve Morse era; presented in a hard-back bookstyle picture sleeve complete with a 32-page specially commissioned book written by Joel McIver [Classic Rock magazine] and is illustrated with photographs from the era covered by the concerts).

DVD1 – Bombay Calling, India 1995

1. Fireball
2. Maybe I’m A Leo
3. Black Night
4. The Battle Rages On
5. Woman From Tokyo
6. Perpendicular Waltz
7. When A Blind Man Cries
8. Perfect Strangers
9. Pictures Of Home
10. Child In Time
11. Anya
12. Space Truckin’
13. Guitar Solo
14. Lazy
15. Speed King
16. Highway Star
17. Smoke On The Water

Bonus Features – Live In Seoul, South Korea, 1995:

18. Black Night
19. Woman From Tokyo
20. When A Blind Man Cries
21. Perfect Strangers
22. Child In Time
23. Speed King
24. Highway Star
25. Smoke On The Water

DVD2 – Total Abandon, Australia 1999

1. Ted The Mechanic
2. Strange Kind Of Woman
3. Bloodsucker
4. Pictures Of Home
5. Almost Human
6. Woman From Tokyo
7. Watching The Sky
8. Fireball
9. Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming
10. Guitar Solo
11. Smoke On The Water
12. Lazy
13. Perfect Strangers
14. Speed King
15. Black Night
16. Highway Star

Bonus Feature:

17. A Band Down Under – Documentary 1999

DVD3 – Live At The NEC, England 2002

1. Fireball
2. Woman From Tokyo
3. Mary Long
4. Ted The Mechanic
5. Lazy
6. The Well Dressed Guitar
7. When A Blind Man Cries
8. Space Truckin’
9. Keyboard Solo
10. Perfect Strangers
11. Speed King
12. Guitar Solo
13. Smoke On The Water
14. Hush
15. Black Night
16. Highway Star

Bonus Feature:

17. Ian Gillan & Roger Glover interview 2002

DVD4 – Access All Areas

The definitive documentary of Deep Purple in the Steve Morse era.

Thanks to Vladimir Drybushchak for the info.

Ritchie Blackmore and Candice Night will be interviewed live on Kerrang! Radio. They will be guests of the “paranormal radio presenter” Yvette Fielding on her Fright Night show on Friday March 14th 2008 at 10:30pm UK time (5:30pm EST). You can try your luck listening to the station online and access archives at whatson.com (“for Windows users with Internet Explorer”, as they proudly announce).

Thanks to Mike Garrett for the info.

My wife and I were simply thrilled to have attended our first DP concert. It was a long wait and when we were finally face to face with one of our all time favourite bands it was just an outburst of adrenaline and emotions.

The classics were played – Pictures of Home, Into the Fire, Strange Kind of Woman, The Battle Rages On, Lazy, Space Truckin’, Highway Star, Smoke on the Water etc … and Steve Morse gave us all the goose bumps when he took that guitar of his and simply poured out his soul.

As if that weren’t enough Don Airey put a magical spell on stage. I’ve got to say that this band will live on forever and in the mind of everyone there that night. The only downside was that my wife and I didn’t get to hear our all time favourite song When a Blind Man Cries and my personal favourite Soldier of Fortune.

Viva Ian Gillan! Viva Steve Morse! Viva Roger Glover! Viva Don Airey! Viva Ian Paice! Viva Deep Purple!

Rapture of the Deep’s third passage in my city. We all thought that would be nothing really new besides Mary Long and The Battle Rages On, but… here it is (read the comments after the set list):

Pictures of Home
Things I Never Said
Into the Fire
Strange Kind of Woman
Rapture of the Deep
Mary Long
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
Contact Lost
Steve Morse Solo
Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming
Steve Morse Riff Parade
The Well Dressed Guitar
The Battle Rages On
Lazy
Don Airey Solo
Perfect Strangers
Space Truckin’
Morse/Glover Jam
Highway Star
Smoke on the Water
—-
Hush (+Ian Paice Solo)
Roger Glover Intro
Black Night

– Pictures of Home: a powerful music to start with, but the highlight was that they played the final part of CHILD IN TIME solo… I mean… that part just before it gets slow again… wonderful to hear this alive!

– Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming: this is the most successful song from Morse era here in Brasil, and the last time that was played here was 2000 at the Concerto tour. Well… just after Contact Lost and his solo, Steve Morse started his riff parade with SIFLS… the audince got crazy and Gillan came back from the back of the stage, whispered in Morse’s ear and signalled for the band… so the song was played!

I think big Ian just wanted an extract for the song, but the band continued to play… the end of the song and the structure was diferent… Gillan forgot some lyrics… so the song was played in a very improvised way, but very authentic… a unique moment! I confess that I cried a little bit… That was exactly what I love in Deep Purple. Thank you guys!

Steve Morse/Roger Glover Jam before HS and Glover Intro before BN: I know these have been played for a long time… but now it’s longer and more elaborated… it’s fair to be listed separated at the set list!

Ian Paice solo: his solos in 2003, 2005 and 2006 were really short, but today he did a long and powerful one, just like the best days!

The Riff Parade: Sweet Child O’Mine as usual, but I got surprised to hear Crazy Train, from Ozzy… Don Airey run to play it too, but when he got at the keyboard, Morse stoped =P …Paranoid was played too!

Men In Black: I need to mention this… at some point of the show, the band (I think Big Ian) asked to get out all the security guys between the band and the audience! 🙂

Well. This was my 15th concert (not counting rehearsals in 2000) and my seventh concert with Don Airey… I can say this was the best with Don, since 2003. No doubt about it. Perfect night!

Cheers!

Marcel Vinicius

Photo by Carlos Coca Junior

Hard on the heels of the successful auction of Jon Lord’s Durham Concerto CD the Linda McCartney Cancer Centre will again be the beneficiary of the sale of a Deep Purple-related item, this time a poster from the Gillan’s Inn tour in 2006 signed by Ian and the band. If you are interested in bidding, then head to eBay UK.

Thanks to Lesley Worrall for the info.

Talk about hard touring band…

We’ve just received tour dates for the October/November Deep Purple tour of Germany. These are preliminary dates, they come from the site of promoter Klaus Bönisch, and at this point are very unconfirmed and subject to change.

Deep Purple have never been strangers in Germany and tour there almost every year. The country was skipped in the 2007 schedule, but it looks like promoters and the band are making up for it this year with two tours — one in the summer and one in the fall.

Prost!

Thanks to Akiko Hada for the info.