This is another excerpt from the 1995 Rainbow interview for Japanese TV. Messrs Blackmore and White have their act down to a T.
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We have reported previously that Perfect Strangers is conspicuously missing from the Montreux’2006 release. One fan actually contacted the record company and that’s what they had to say:

Unfortunately the material for Perfect Strangers was not usable so a decision was made, in conjunction with the band, not to include it on either the DVD or CD. It does, however, appear on the second disc in the Hard Rock Cafe performance.

Perfect Strangers is also missing from the otherwise almost complete Japanese TV broadcast of the gig, which suggests there was some kind of technical glitch with the recording.

Thanks to Elinor for the info.

Order the DVD from an Amazon store near you:

Ian Paice will be doing several gigs in June:

• June 9 – Agriturismo Amicizia, Cassano Murge (Bari), Italy, with Deeper
• June 16 – Festa d’Estate, Vascon (Treviso), Italy, with Tolo Marton
• June 22 – Open Air Montecarasso, Canton Ticino, Switzerland, with Matt Filippini Band and special guest Neil Otupacca (ex Gotthard)
• June 28 – Cortile del Maglio, Arsenale della Pace, Turin, Italy, with Matt Filippini Band
• June 29 – Muntodenfest (Beer Fest), Montodine (Cremona), Italy, with Matt Filippini Band, free entrance show

In other news, by all accounts his gig on June 3 in Belgorod, Russia, was a success. He played with a local Lee Joe Band in front a very enthusiastic audience of several hundred. The set list was:
Highway Star
Strange Brew
Fire
Badge
Soul Mover
Little Wind
Get It On
Foxy Lady
I Like Rock
Holy Man ‘ High Road
Blues Power
Born To Be Wild
Sweet Girl
Woman From Tokyo
Smoke On The Water
Hush

The gig was professionally filmed, so there’s is hope for a DVD.

Thanks to Matt Filippini, Francesco and Uncle G/Russian Forum for the info.

June 3 is the date of a new world record for the most guitar players simultaneously playing together. Location was Kansas City and the song was Smoke on the Water. The new record was set at 1,680 people and that’s the number Stuttgart will have to beat. Local radio station KYYS 99.7 FM sponsored the event and will send sign-up lists and other paperwork to Guinness people for official recognition.

Read press coverage at KansasCity.com.

This story appeared on the newswire, so thanks to everybody who’ve sent it in.

Tired of the old setlist debate? Here’s your chance to vote for a setlist you like (although there’s no guarantee that anybody will listen).

It works like this:

• We have assembled a list of 60 songs played live since Steve Morse joined the band. Why these? You have to stop somewhere. Besides, the band wouldn’t have an excuse of “we didn’t have time to rehearse a new song.” 😉
• You can select a maximum of 15 songs.
• Everybody is allowed to vote only once.
• You need javascript and cookies enabled in your browser.
• Poll closes on July 1.

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Tourdates for the North American tour have been confirmed by Deep Purple’s management. The tour will start on July 12 in Atlanta, and proceed to Midwest, via Canada to East Coast, resume on August 12 in California, work it’s way to Texas and conclude in Dallas on August 25. Check our tourdates page for complete listings and ticket info.

The History Channel (or at least, it’s branch in India) is launching a new series “History Rocks” that will air from May 28 to June 7.

The eight-part series, “History Rocks”, will feature concerts, rare documentaries and interviews with rock stars. Some of the greatest musical rock bands and groups like Queen, Deep Purple, The Doors, The Who, Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Santana will feature in this series that fuses music and history together.

The episode on Deep Purple will air on May 31 and will include “Live at Montreux” performance. We have no idea whether it will be the 1996 concert released last year on DVD, or the 2006 performance due to be released at the beginning of June. Likewise, we have no details if the series will be shown in other markets.

Thanks to The Hindu for the info.

In his latest message to the fans, Roger talks about his daughter Gillian’s new album (it’s out now), proper spelling, security at the gigs, MySpace squatters, and Finnish postal stamps, among other things.

Go get a few points.

Being a Deep Purple fan exposes you to strange things. The band’s headlining gig at the Danish Jelling Music Festival on May 26 is no exception.

The unbelievably unintelligent and overrated underachievers in Bloodhound Gang occupies the main stage before Deep Purple. Hopefully their idiotic rants against gays, girls and non-Christian religions is just that – and not American white trash adolescence personified.

30 minutes to midnight Deep Purple takes the stage under a clear night sky. At the end of a long day in the sun, the crowd seems drained and it becomes an uphill struggle for the band to get more than the diehards near the front going.

Ian Gillan treads barefoot in black jeans and westerny white shirt. Very stylish he looks too. The rest of the band likewise. The sound is spot on as they fire away with Pictures Of Home, Things I Never Said, Into The Fire and Strange Kind Of Woman. This is exciting.

Pictures Of Home itself has become a little medley of snippets, moving as it does into a bit of the old Beethoven’s Ninth and even incorporating a signature piece from the guitar solo in Child In Time. Ingenious.

‘She was a mystery biscuit’, he sings of his strange kind of woman. Rhyming Nancy with fancy has worked for 36 years and the song still boogies and sways and we follow suit. The guitar solo is played to a different chord progression these days, which throws one or two of the diehards. Nice touch. The ending is also different.

Ian tells us Rapture Of The Deep is a new song which is old, as it’s off the new album which is a year old. What a genius composition this one is. The assembled craftsmen onstage each come into their own on this track as it moves beyond simple good time hard rock.

Ian Gillan ambles across the stage, waving at various sections of the crowd and it works. He’s applied a new trick of putting on a mock shocked face, pretending to be caught unawares of particularly loud spots in the music. It sort of makes him look like a grand dad trying to cajole a smile out of the grandchild in the tram. Spooky.

Getting cold feet
After Steve Morse’s engaging solo spot – which includes cheerful snippets of Sweet Home Alabama, Sweet Child O’Mine and a powerful (as always) Well Dressed Guitar – Ian Gillan decides he’d had enough of the cold evening:

‘What do you say guys, should we skip this one? It’s too cold for slow songs. Let’s do Lazy instead,’ he says (probably) of When A Blind Man Cries.

Mind you, walking around barefoot in the chill Danish night is known around here as the perfect recipe for catching a serious cold!

Tonight The Battle Rages On is not introduced as coming from ‘the four corners of Hell’ – but Gillan does prance about with devil horns trying to look menacing. I really enjoy hearing this one back in live set. The unpredictable 1993 versions will always rule supreme in my mind, but the current lineup does the song justice, Don Airey even adding a bit of trumpet during the build-up near the end. It’s an excellent song, again showcasing one of the band’s more exotic styles of writing. Thumbs up!

Rolls Royce rock’n’roll
The band has a professional air about them. Much like a Rolls Royce, they’re quite unbeatable in their class. Yet as they move through the second half of the set – one Machine Head classic after another, all played to perfection – the show begins to bore.

And before you dismiss me as a hardcore online nutter only in it for the rarities: You can tell that the unwavering high standard of performance is also turning the crowd comfortably numb – to the point where even the tried and tested crowd pleasing hits (except Smoke of course) suddenly fall short on unconverted ears. Quite simply, to this festival crowd of very casual music fans, something less safe and less predictable is called for.

After a very tight version of Hush – complete with somewhat shaky drum solo (oops, where did that stick suddenly go?) – Roger Glover takes a solo spot and starts playing the riff to Black Night. And the crowd doesn’t react. This was a first for me. During the song Ian Gillan attempts to ‘conduct’ the crowd into chanting along, but with the same lame result.

Gradually Gillan becomes visibly annoyed at the slack audience. He takes his frustration out on the festival’s follow spotlights, which seem to blind him. ‘Those spots are so low! Can’t you afford any towers?’

Overall the band was probably scheduled too late on a long festival day not otherwise catering to the hard rockers, making the crowd one of the most casual Deep Purple have played to in a long time. You can’t win them all, but they sure do try.

Generally speaking the crowd reacts the same way to Rapture Of The Deep as it does to Black Night, so playing the hits – even at a festival – isn’t a guaranteed success. Furthermore being such a short set we are robbed not only of When A Blind Man cries, but also of Wrong Man and Perfect Strangers, that have been played recently.

Suffice to say it’s excellent to see the guys again. They put on a good show, but I’ve seen better – even considering the less than ideal circumstances.

Pictures Of Home
Things I Never Said
Into The Fire
Strange Kind Of Woman
Rapture Of The Deep
Fireball
Steve Morse’s solo
Well Dressed Guitar
Lazy
The Battle Rages On
Space Truckin’
Highway Star
Smoke On The Water

Hush
Black Night

Rasmus Heide, The Highway Star reviews editor

P.S.
New album + new tour = old setlist? (Old discussion!)

The band entered just before midnight and it seemed they felt a little cold – barefeet and all – but the audience soon compensated for that. It just took the opening song to get the feedback coming from the 20,000 – pretty much all age groups as always.

The setlist was the usual festival greatest hits mix – When a Blind Man cries was left out because of the low temperature – according to the discussion onstage – but the attitude of the guys was not just ‘festival’. They sounded as fresh as at the beginning of the tour and put a lot into the performance. No weaknesses, just high energy.

Gillan decided to act as the devil when introducing The Battle Rages On and the memories came back. Also he fell over – deliberately – when touching Steve at one point, joining together, and they seemed to have a great time. So did everybody.

And the yelling? Warming up to Highway Star you get what you deserve from the front man, and then the crowd took over the vocals.

Among some new bits and pieces you would see IG just entering for one line of Rolling Stones’ Honky Tonk Woman during Steve’s riff-raff.

Hope they get through the climate tonight – it’s Iceland…

Per Sorensen