Gillan’s March 18 appearance on the Belgian TV show also included a live performance of No lotion for that with the house band:
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TicketOne.it has announced five December dates in Italy:

Dec 10: Palaonda, Bolzano
Dec 12: PalaLottomatica, Rome
Dec 14: PalaEvangelisti, Perugia
Dec 15: Paladozza, Bologna
Dec 16: Mediolanum Forum, Milan

As far as we can understand the original announcement, tickets go on sale tomorrow, April 8. Please note that these dates have not yet been confirmed by the Deep Purple management.

In case you have not seen this in your morning newspaper, Metallica has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. James Hetfield started his acceptance speech with a list of bands which where important influences implying (to a wildly cheering crowd) they should have been inducted:

We have a small list that we’d like to put some nods out and maybe plant a little seed. To band called Deep Purple… Thin Lizzy, Rush, Kiss, Ted Nugent, Iron Maiden, Motorhead… who we would love to invite through the door now.

Hetfield’s speech starts at around 4:30 into the clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jz96Ry4pUg

RnR Hall of Fame selection process has been a source of controversy for many years as it is run by a closed committee which pays no attention to the input from the fans. The Sex Pistols, inducted in 2006, refused to attend the ceremony, saying “You’re anonymous as judges, but you’re still music industry people. We’re not coming. You’re not paying attention.”

Thanks to 411mania.com for the info.

UPDATE (Apr 12): Hetfield’s selection of musicians that deserve induction was actually a summary of band members’ opinions. At the press conference announcing their induction earlier this year, the members of Metallica each named a band they’d like to see inducted and why, It comes as no surprise that Deep Purple were Lars Ulrich’s choice.

James Hetfield:

Motorhead. Lemmy is rock and roll.

Lars Ulrich:

I’d say Deep Purple. If you say Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, you also have to say Deep Purple. They come as a threesome.

Kirk Hammett:

I would have to say Rush. I think they’re a great band who took rock to a different level altogether in terms of like songwriting and technical proficiency, and I believe that they deserve to be in the Hall of Fame.

Rob Trujillo:

I mean, I love UFO, I know Kirk’s a huge fan of UFO too, and a band like that, you know, should be recognized, and hopefully someday will be.

Thanks to The Rock Radio for the info.

Deep Purple normally don’t do soundchecks. The class of all the musicians allows them not to. They do not need to rehearse every day, and they trust their roadies to set up the equipment right. They only rehearse occasionally — after a long break in the touring, when there are significant changes in the setlist, or in other unusual circumstances. Most of the time such rehearsals are held behind closed doors, although occasionally we are able to have a peek. One such occasion was at the Paris Olympia in 1996, where the band rehearsed for about an hour during the day with the brass section and the rehearsal was bootlegged. Another occasion happened in 1993 when the band were rehearsing before the start of The Battle Rages On tour in Bregenz, Austria. A TV crew were allowed to film behind the closed doors there. Bits and pieces of that footage have appeared since then, but here are 3 complete tracks:

Anya:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NlER2aTTUg

The Battle Rages On:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH4KUq9dYG4

A Twist In The Tail:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6nmFCf-X0c

Thanks to the YouTube uploaders and to Daniel Bengtsson and dynamomoskva for bringing it to your attention.

Ian Gillan appeared on Dutch Radio 2 to promote One Eye To Morocco. You can listen to the podcast at schiffers.fm (scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the audio player). The interview is about 16 minutes long and is actually quite interesting once it gets past the familiar bits about his new album.

Here you can also see the clip of him talking with the DJ about Child in Time and commenting on the Doing Their Thing video:

Thanks to Robert Daems and Daniel Bengtsson for the info.

Ian Gillan did an interview with BBC Radio Gloucestershire where he talks about self-discipline in the studio, the bad old days in swinging London and the role of accountants in Deep Purple’s history, among other things.

The interview is 12 minutes long. You can listen to it online from the BBC (or if it doesn’t work, here is RealAudio stream directly).

Thanks to Mark Jones for the info.

We have closed our comments yesterday due to a quickly deteriorating signal-to-noise ratio. Unfortunately, our warning was ignored by the intended recipients.

Our comments facility was never intended to be a public forum. It is simply a quick and convenient way to contact us, to provide feedback to the stories or ask relevant questions. Consequently, we have to read each and every comment. Apparently some of our readers can not fathom this nor can they apply the simple rule of “if you have nothing to say, say nothing”. (We can name names, but you and we know who they are.)

The comments will be open again soon. This time all comments will be pre-moderated. No comment will appear on THS automatically like before, but only after an approval from one of the editors. Comments will be approved or rejected based on relevance, (lack of) redundancy and the manner in which a particular opinion is expressed.

No, we don’t see a contradiction between moderation and freedom of speech. This is not a public soapbox where anyone can post whatever they want. We expect our readers to behave, otherwise we may be forced to throw them out. Any ‘dissidents’ are free to go and start their own website and set their own rules. That’s how freedom of speech works on the internet.

While this new setup will give us more unnecessary moderation work, we hope it will also make visiting The Highway Star a more enjoyable experience for the vast majority of our readers.

Thank you,
The Highway Star Crew

Ian Gillan stopped in The Netherlands Belgium on his way to Dubai to appear on TV talk show. Watch his appearance to learn about adrenaline problems, who is Dan, and what do Japanese firemen have in common with Brazilian strippers.
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Bob Ruggiero of The Houston Press did an interview with Ian Gillan. There is some typically Gillan anecdotage besides the usual story behind his latest album:

The funniest thing was when we did the tour for House of Blue Light in the late ’80s and somebody, without telling me or the rest of the band, decided to get a modern stage set. I mean, we don’t mind having a screen behind, but this was like the deck of Star Trek or something. Anyway, I was appalled and it was a shock to me.

It was the opening night of the tour in Austin, so I went down to this fine joke shop. I bought about 20 plastic urinals and managed to attach them to the stage set all around, so it made it appear as if the whole stage was one giant washroom. I even stuck one on the front of Jon [Lord’s] Hammond organ. And of course, the Texas girls in the old days were, uh, second to none!

Read it online at the Houston Press’ Classic Rock Corner.

Thanks to Bob Ruggiero for the info.

Both Jon Lord and Glenn Hughes are confirmed to appear at the ChildLine Rocks 2009, which will be held on June 1 at the indigO₂ in London. Last year’s Childline Rocks have seen the first appearance of Glenn Hughes and Ian Paice together on stage since 1976.

ChildLine Rocks is an annual rock concert to raise funds for the UK charity helping children in distress or danger. Trained volunteer counsellors comfort, advise and protect children and young people who may feel they have nowhere else to turn.

Sons Of Albion, Jessie Hunter, Andy Newmark, Tyson Schenker and Molly Marriott will also perform at the event.

Childline supporter and radio DJ Bob Harris says:

Glenn was with us last year for Childline Rocks and was an absolutely unbelievable success, he was the star of the night in many ways. So we invited him to come back again, so he’s flying in from Los Angeles especially for the concert. We have got Steve Balsamo from one of my favourite bands The Stories and have got Justin Hawkins previously with The Darkness now with his new band (Hot Leg).

Thanks to BraveWords and metro.co.uk for the info.