On a cold pre-spring night in Normandy, Deep Purple put the fire into our hearts.

Pictures of Home smashed the audience with its drum attack.

Hilarious moment when Ian Gillan took the wrong tuned harmonica during the solo in Lazy.

I’ve expected so long to hear The Battle Rages On in the Rapture of the Deep Tour and now they are doing it! It was a dark and quite insane version…

What about the ‘golden ending way’ started with Perfect Strangers ‘til Smoke – What a blast! Roger Glover drove his bass like a hammer.

Black Night lead us to our car to go back home by the highway and we surely had stars in our eyes. Thank U guys !

Anthony Oussin

Rocknworld published an extensive interview that Glenn Hughes has given to them. He talks about his latest album, Music for the Divine, about how he overcame his past drug addiction and many other things. Of a particular interest to our readers would be the fact that he finally went on record speaking about Mk.3 reunion:

antiMUSIC: In your heart of hearts, do you think the long-anticipated reunion of Purple Mk III will ever happen?

Glenn: I think everybody…except Ian Paice….Ian is still in MkII. We’ve all spoken about it, through third parties. We’ve all spoken. I mean David and Jon Lord and I haven spoken about it at great length. Ritchie has now spoken to people. I mean….look I’d like to do it for two reasons. The first simply being to play with my brothers again and to complete the chapter. But you know I think it would be great to play with Ritchie again and David and Jon and Ian again. I think it would be really, really good. I think it would be a really great band. One last time, you know.

Read the full interview here.

Marking the end of the French leg of the tour, both Steve Morse and Roger Glover have published their regular messages for the fans. Steve’s notes from the road discuss the perils of international travel, French cuisine and being an opening act. Of particular interest is this passage about French audiences, which I’m sure to pour some new flammables on the old setlist debate:

All the crowds have been a treat for me. They have all heard Smoke on the Water, but not so many of the other tunes, so it works to our advantage with the new stuff. They enjoy it because they don’t know or care if it’s new or old, they just listen and enjoy. The quiet improv parts are especially fun, since there’s zero chance of getting the one guy who yells out…..they just don’t do it. They listen, and if they’re moved by it, spontaneously applaud. Everyone knows the tried and true devices for forcing an audience to applaud, but I really enjoy that unplanned kind of spontaneity when the crowd decides in the middle of a phrase that it’s a good time to clap. Anyway, the music will always be the highlight of touring, for me.

Read Steve’s notes from the road.

Roger in his message gives an update of the studio work he did between the tours: working with his daughter Gillian, mixing Dream Theater’s take on Made in Japan and progress of the his new solo album. Short and sweet, there it is.

As you probably have already heard, following the gig at the Radio City Music Hall on March 30th, Ronnie James Dio has announced that he is quitting Heaven and Hell tour for undisclosed reasons. Apparently Tony Iommi wants to fulfil the band’s extensive US and European touring commitments in April/May/June. He has asked Ian Gillan to step in for Dio if they rename the project Born Again.

Gillan, when caught backstage after the show in Limoges, confirmed that he had spoken to Tony and said he has to “think it over”, but he’ll probably do it if the schedule doesn’t clash with Deep Purple’s – and there’s no dry ice on stage.

Let’s see what does this boil down to (provided all the lawyers and managers can come to an agreement as well). Deep Purple are on tour in UK from April 21 to May 3, then on to the continent until May 27, practically non-stop. Which rules out the Born Again US tour. But at the moment it looks like Ian Gillan is available for the European dates in June.

Brace yourself, I like the smell of deja vu in the morning. It really was a meeting, the bottle took a beating. Ladies of the manor watched me climb into my car…

Thanks to Hubert Jesslilt for the info.

Music Street Journal has done a interview with Glenn Hughes, which has just been published. Here is a excerpt:

Music Street Journal: There have been rumors you might get involved in the remastering of Deep Purple’s Stormbringer.

Glenn Hughes: I’ve done that. I was in the studio at Abbey Road three months ago to do “Holy Man” and I did it really quick. I put the board tape up from the 24 track from ’74 and it sounded so great that I mixed it. I mixed a few more songs. I mixed “Holy Man,” “You Can’t Do It Right,” “Love Don’t Mean a Thing.” I mixed them in the afternoon. I did a slightly different mix than what you’ve heard already with a little raw vocal, probably more funk on those tracks, more than you probably remember. I’ve added a couple of things on guitar that we didn’t have on the original. And I’ve added a new vocal on “Hold On” so it’s kind of an interesting mix.

Read the full interview here.
Thanks to Music Street Journal for the information.

Photo: S. Belyakov, www.sbelyakov.ru.

Joe Lynn Turner’s upcoming solo album Second Hand Life will be featured this Saturday, March 31 on Argentina radio programme Malicia Pais De Las Maravillas. You can listen to it over the Internet at http://www.lt24online.com.ar/lt24fm.m3u. The show airs at 1pm Buenos Aires time, use world clock converter to convert to your local time or email Gustavo Solinas from the Joe Lynn Turner Argentina Fan Site for further questions.

Gustavo also asks that you email the show at maliciapais@hotmail.com with your location in the world (if you listen to the show, I presume), for example:
To: maliciapais@hotmail.com
From: mario@italy.it

Hi, I am Mario from Italy.

This will help to support his website.

Thanks to Mike Garrett for the info.

I came across this on one of the mailing lists. The announcement was for the Steve Morse Band Live in Baden Baden and Dixie Dregs Live at Montreux reviews at the Music Street Journal. Since the announcement didn’t give direct links, I started poking around.

First things first, i know it’s just a matter of personal taste (and some people say the same about The Highway Star), but I’ve found the design and navigation on the site to be particularly hideous.

Now, getting this out of the system, I was very pleasantly surprised with objectivity of the reviews (at least once it comes to Purple material, I didn’t read the rest). For example, here’s an excerpt from the Deep Purple Live at Montreux DVD:

Sometimes it’s all about the impression. I saw Deep Purple once quite a few years back, and frankly, I found them to be boring. Now, I barely remember the show. After seeing this DVD, though, I can tell you that either they were having a really bad night (it happens) or I just wasn’t in the right mood for them. Either way, you never saw the review of the show at Music Street Journal. Why is that? It’s because we don’t do negative reviews. If we don’t like something more than we dislike it, we just don’t review it. That serves two main purposes. The first is that with as much good stuff out there we don’t waste our time (and yours) with sub par material. The second goes more to my central point in talking about this – just because I happen to not find something entertaining it doesn’t mean it’s bad. After seeing this video, my guess is that was definitely the case on that show. I know that I’ve always like Deep Purple’s particular style of hard rock on album. That one particular night left me greatly unimpressed, though. So, why trash them over one night? Well, I’m glad I didn’t because it was probably more about a long day of watching bands than it was about them. As evidenced by this video, these guys simply kill in the live performance venue.

This, in my book, is a pretty good position to start with.

And now do go and check the reviews:

• Deep Purple: http://www.musicstreetjournal.com/deeppurplelist.htm
• Steve Morse: http://www.musicstreetjournal.com/smorlist.htm
• Dixie Dregs: http://www.musicstreetjournal.com/dreglist.htm
• Rainbow: http://www.musicstreetjournal.com/rainbowlist.htm
• Blackmore’s Night: http://www.musicstreetjournal.com/blackmoresnightlist.htm
• Glenn Hughes: http://www.musicstreetjournal.com/glennhugheslist.htm
• Whitesnake: http://www.musicstreetjournal.com/whitesnakelist.htm

You can think whatever you want of the direction Blackmore’s music took some 10 years ago, but slowly but steadily he’s being recognised as an accomplished acoustic player. The Fingerstyle Guitar magazine featured him on the cover of issue 61. The issue also includes what is by all accounts an excellent interview done by Ray Flacke. You can get the issue here for $9.95 (plus $8.50 for international shipping).

Thanks to MikeY for the info.

getreadytoROCK is running a competition to win a couple of tickets for any show (except Bornemouth and Glasgow) of the upcoming Deep Purple UK tour. The competition includes one unbelievably difficult question, for which I’m sure none of our readers know the answer. It runs until April 15. Enter here.

UPDATE (March 30): Once you’re there, you may also want to check review of the Glenn Hughes’ gig at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London on March 25th.

Thanks to Mike Garrett and Keith Thompson for the info.

Australian singer Jimmy Barnes is recovering from an open heart surgery. Jimmy is a member of the Purple Family most widely know for his participation in the Living Loud project. Last year Drew Thompson also introduced him to Glenn Hughes and they’ve been writing songs for Barnes’ next album together. Returning the favour, Barnes sang The Rolling Stones’ Monkey Man on Music For The Divine.

Commenting on Jimmy’s surgery, Glenn said:

Jimmy Barnes is a soul brother to me, man. I know he isn’t well at the moment but we are exchanging emails and he tells me he’s getting better and I thank the Lord for that.

I’ve no doubt that he’s going to emerge an even stronger and better person when he’s fully recovered and that he will produce a great album. I only heard about his heart condition over the news wires so it gave me quite a shock. I’ve had trouble with the old ticker as well.

We all at The Highway Star wish Jimmy a speedy recovery and all the best.

Thanks to the Herald Sun for the info.