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

In my previous review of Brussels (Belgium) concert (25 Jan 2006), I said that it was magic. Well, this time in the Lotto Arena of Antwerpen (Belgium) on 18 May 2007, it was super magic.

Last year I was really impressed after attending a DP concert for the first time in my life after following their music for 32 years, and this time the impression was even bigger, just thinking that they are still able to produce this kind of music after these long years.
Everyone in the band was wonderful. But what really surprised me was Gillan’s ability to perform as in his young days with DP. His voice was really fantastic and ‘age resistant’. I hope that I still have long years ahead of me to enjoy his wonderful voice.

I will also pay tribute to Paice, Glover, Morse and Airey who really kept me away from feeling nostalgic about the 70s music. The overall atmosphere was like back in the golden years.

Just for the record the set list was the following:

Pictures of home
Things I never said
Into the Fire
Strange kind of Woman
Rapture of the Deep
Fireball
Wrong Man
Steve Morse solo and Well Dressed Guitar
When a Blind Man Cries
Don Airey solo
Lazy
The Battle Rages on
Don Airey solo
Perfect strangers
Space Truckin’
Highway Star
Smoke on the Water

Encore:
Hush with Ian Paice solo
Roger Glover solo
Black Night

Now, I’m eagerly waiting for the Liege (Belgium) concert to be confirmed so that I can feel alive again …

Saleem Al-Ani

Not so much a review, but here is the setlist of Hellendoorn:

Intro
Pictures Of Home
Things I Never Said
Into The Fire
Strange Kind Of Woman
Rapture Of The Deep
Fireball
Morsemania’s/Well Dressed Guitar
When A Blind Man Cries
Lazy
The Battle Rages On.
Space Truckin’
Highway Star
Smoke On The Water

encores:
Hush
Black Night

Greetingz from Holland
Jannie Vennius

At the age of 12, I got the albums 24 Carat, In Rock and Machine Head on vinyl from the guys at my mother’s ballroom dance hall. In the meantime Maiden, Priest and Saxon found their way to the public and to me.

I’m still a music fan in all these years, gonna play a little bit guitar, I had played in a band on vocal – still local… and then I became a roadie for The Bintangs (so called ‘Dutch Rolling Stones’ established 1961)

On June 19 2007 we get the van from Haarlem (the orginal name of Harlem, USA), get the amps and other equipment and went on the road again to Hellendoorn.

We see a little of the soundcheck of Deep Purple. Amazing in 10 minutes but without members of the band. After that we get the equipment on stage.

The Bintangs played their ‘smog rock’ straight into the air. Great gig. After good food backstage and a great Y&T, Purple find their feet and music on stage.

All you Purple fans, in one word: Great. Keep them alive!

Rock and roll!

With kind regards
Jur Kehl (crew The Bintangs, www.bintangs.nl)

A day without Deep Purple is a like a day without sunshine

A sunny day in the Antwerp harbour… nice temperature… fantastic day to show off my new Rapture of the Deep T-shirt which I bought at the last gig I saw at Rock Zottegem last year.

I convinced a French friend to come along…

Also the first time to check out the new Lotto Arena in Antwerp. And yes, we were lucky we had one of the best seats in the house at the left of the stage seen from the band.

From the Geneva setlist I could see that “Pictures from home” was the opener and I must say that my suspicion turned into reality. I like more Fireball, Hush, Ted the Mechanic as an opener because those song have more power.

“Things I never said” went a bit lost in the sound which was not completely tuned yet. Then we all went “Into the fire” with DP, briliant!

What I don’t understand is why there was no pause between all these songs. Hello, we all speak English, Ian! We like to hear you talk about the witch’s leg, etc…

After a small greeting (sic) “Strange kind of Woman”, as dynamic as it ever can be. Followed by “Rapture” which I find is one of the best songs written in the last decade by DP.

Then the magnficent “Fireball”. Followed by “Wrong Man”, about a guy who is accused of a murder he did not commit. Did Ian make allusion to PrisonBreak? And did they return the favour to play Hush on the radio before it would explode in episode 2 of the second season?

Anyway no time to waste because the man who drinks his milk and rides his horse… gave a brilliant solo. So good a “Blind man would start to cry”.

The very magnificent “Lazy” rocked to my opinion the first time the venue! The video made a reference to the Machine Head album which had 3 fantastic songs. Maybe an idea to use more the video screens in the future without turning into a movie theater.

“The Battle Raged On” as only DP can rage. The dangerous Don Airey gave a solo which made me think of DP in concert with the London Symphonica. Thanks to the video cameras we could see that playing the keyboards is hard work.

“Perfect Strangers” was again perfect and strange. Again I like the dancing of Ian. Is it because he is in Flanders that he does some kind of Flamengo?

“Space Truckin'” and “Highway star” exploded the venue as it is expected of these songs.

“Smoke” rocked but unfortunately it is a song I heard too much in my life…

As encore we received “Hush” with a very dynamic Ian juming up and down enjoying himself.

Then Roger gave a solo. Believe me, the bass is hard work too since I was one time in front of Roger on the front row in Forest National and Roger kicks ass.

The ever so fantastic “Black Night” drove us home in the darkness.

Wondering why it all had to end so quick and why we have to wait again another year before they come back.

Greeting to to the band and special greeting to Jon Lord.

Dirk Van Rompaey

I have seen DP every time in London since 2002 and this was their best to date.

Highlights were ‘Into the Fire’ and ‘The Battle Rages On’ (the latter so much the better without the dreadfully clunky studio guitar solo).

I would have liked more recent material (you would be surprised how much demand there is for the Morse era product), songs like Ted the Mechanic / Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming / Silver Tongue / Wrong Man are all magnificent – especially live!

That said, DP played superbly and I have never seen a band so ‘together’ as it is today.

Roll on the 40th anniversary tour!

Simon Bird

Ian Gillan talked to an internet radio station ROCK 247 Online on May 6. Ian joined the Classic Rock Show to talk about his career, and discuss the newly-available remasters of his albums with The Ian Gillan Band and Gillan. He also touched upon how the idea of playing machine Head on the UK tour came up Deep Purple, and the recent Gillan’s Inn album.

If you missed the show, or want to hear Ian’s comments again, you can now listen to the entire interview (about 12 minutes) at ROCK 247’s Myspace Interview site (Macromedia Flash).

Thanks to Doug for the info.

“All my favourite drummers are dead.”

Paicey makes no secret that he grew up on the music of classic Big Band drummers such as Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa, who had a tremendous influence on his style.

Buddy Rich would have celebrated his 90th birthday on September 30th, and 2007 also marks 20 years since his passing. The special one off concert celebrating the life of a legend, known to many as The World’s Greatest Drummer, will be held at the Garrick Theatre in Lichfield, England on September 29.

Ian Palmer, one of Europe’s foremost session drummers has brought together six of the world’s leading drummers to perform alongside the award winning Fat Chops Big Band. They are: Ian Paice (Deep Purple), Steve White (Paul Weller), Jon Brookes (The Charlatans), Pete Cater (The Pete Cater Big Band), Garry Allcock (The All Stars Big Band) and of course, Neil Bullock (Fat Chops Big Band) as they perform the music made famous by Buddy Rich.

Tickets are available via the theatre website or by calling 01543 412121.

Thanks to Michael Mountford for the info.