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Pension off the mothballs – Milton Keynes

Purple struck it lucky with fantastic weather and an appreciative crowd. Taking the stage at sunset they stormed through an hour and half (too short as is usual nowadays) of high energy rock – 13 songs by my count – and solo spots were kept to a minimum.

Bearing in mind the diverse nature of the audience I suppose it was not surprising that they played such a predictable set, but I don’t see how they can complain about being tagged as a ‘Classic Rock’ act when 80%+ of the set included songs recorded over 30 years ago. Consequently, there was no room for Rapture highlights such as Wrong Man, Clearly Quite Absurd and Junkyard Blues although, bizarrely, they did play Things I Never Said, which wasn’t even on the European version of the CD.

That said, the band played well, a couple of surprisingly missed cues apart, and the Paice/Glover axis was on top form. A highlight was the extended and revamped Highway Star, which breathed new life into the classic. Another was a more sparse When a Blind Man Cries and a great Rapture of the Deep.

I see they’re coming to the UK next year. Hopefully, they’ll have the courage to mothball the likes of Fireball and Strange Kind of Woman and play a more adventurous set based on Morse/Airey era numbers with a few surprises thrown in.

Andy

The monsters arise – Milton Keynes

When I read that the Monsters of Rock was to return this year, headlined by Deep Purple and Alice Cooper I was really excited.

The main reason for this exitement, however, was the festival itself. After being a little bored by two of the three Purple gigs that I have seen before, I was worried that they wouldn’t be worthy of a headline spot, and that the crowd may be sent to sleep by a set of endless solos.

How wrong was I!

The whole festival was amazing. Roadstar (formerly Hurricane Party) were the best opening band I have ever seen and are set for huge things; Ted Nugent was fun but made a naive reference to the UK helping them out in the war (we aren’t actually proud of it, Ted!); Queensryche were unbelievably dull, and would have fallen apart without Geoff Tate’s great voice; Thunder, as always, were incredible, their set was entertaining, and Danny Bowes really had the crowd eating out of his hand (not to mention lapping up every note of his super-human voice).

Journey were good, not great. I happen to have a greatest hits of Journey and love tracks like Wheel in the sky and Any way you want it, and the obvious Open Arms and Don’t stop believing. They were musically stunning, and the new frontman has a superb voice [That later turned out to be rather debatable. Rasmus], the crowd favourites had everyone singing along.

Alice Cooper was dissapointing. As his set is based around a nightmare, it didn’t really work in the daylight (as most people don’t have nightmares about beautiful sunshine). The set was ok, then started to pick up. The theatrics surrounding Only Women Bleed were stunning, and the guillotine was a highlight of the day.

Then Deep Purple.

Starting with the video of them all climbing out of a flight case, they exploded into Pictures of Home and Things I never said; I have heard both before, but not a lot, but they really worked great.

Hush was truly fantastic and after a countless amount of beer in the afternoon, me, my dad and his mate were dancing away! The rest of the set was very purpose built to rock. They only did one more from Rapture of the Deep, its title track. They then fired out crowd pleasers Fireball, Strange Kind of Woman, When a blind man cries, Perfect Strangers, Space truckin’ and Lazy.

The set drew to a close with Highway Star and Smoke on the water. Roger Glover returned to the stage to have a bit a of a bass jam which led into Black Night, which had the crowd singing to every note. Steve Morse did a lot of noodling which had the crowd singing back what he played. Unfortunately that was the last encore, leaving me wanting much more.

The best part of the night was the absence of massive solos. Steve did Contact lost and the Well dressed guitar very early on and Don did a short, but stunning, keyboard solo later on.

Performance of the night definately goes to Don, who (for the first time) really showed me what he is capable of.

Deep Purple proved what they can do on saturday. Let’s hope they continue to do the same.

Amazing!

Mike Heywood

Set list:
Pictures Of Home / Things I Never Said / Hush / Rapture Of The Deep / Strange Kind Of Woman / Fireball / When A Blind Man Cries / Lazy / Perfect Strangers / Space Truckin’ / Highway Star / Smoke On The Water / Black Night

DP management does not like Deicide cover

In a recent interview with webzine Antenna, Deicide drummer Steve Asheim, talked about how Deep Purple blocked the band’s cover version of “Black Night”.

How did the Deep Purple cover “Black Night” come about?
Asheim: “It came about because Glen had been toying around with the idea for three years about doing a cover song, but no one was into it. The Hoffmanns weren’t into it, I wasn’t really into it either, but when Ralph and Jack came into the picture, he mentioned it to them, and they were both into it. I at the point said: ‘Well, since I’m the only one who’s not into it I’ll just go along and do it because these guys want to.’ So the song itself Glen picked it and kind of worked it the original way and for me that just wouldn’t work out. The slowness of it — what kind of drove me into playing extreme drums in the first place was not having to play slow stuff like that, but the idea of still doing a cover was cool. We played around with it a bit and what we did was that we turned it into a DEICIDE song. We turned it into a death metal song and changed up a few things, the speed and the time signature and just went nuts with it and to kind of further that story we have not had permission to put it out in Europe because word came down directly from DEEP PURPLE’s management who heard the song and said it’s just too far out, and we don’t want you to put it out, but in the U.S. they somehow found a way around that so it will make it out somehow. People will end up hearing it in Europe somehow eventually.”

Read the entire interview at www.antenna.nu.

DP still want to play in Lebanon

In a statement released to media on Monday, Deep Purple says they intend to honor their commitment to perform at the Baalbeck Music Festival outside Beirut on July 28.

“The band has never cancelled a show and has no intention of doing so,” the statement said. “If the festival promoter decides to cancel the show as a result of the current conflicts, Deep Purple will vow to reschedule in the near future.”

In a news article in the Swedish morning paper Sydsvenskan, there was an article on Monday about a Swedish citizen trapped in Baalbeck. It describes Baalbeck as one of the places worst hit by the ongoing conflict:

“Baalbeck is in eastern Lebanon close to the Syrian border and is regarded as a Hezbollah stronghold. Because of that, the city is under constant fire. According to the BBC, Saturday’s attack against Baalbeck was aimed at local Hezbollah leaders who had gathered in the town.”
(…)
“Mamdoh El-Dakkak tells us that he and his friend are ready to pay big money to get out of Baalbeck.
‘We offered a taxi driver 1000 US dollar to drive us to Beirut, but he didn’t dare to do that. No one dares to drive on the roads here.'”

Gillan wants your help on his US tour

This just in from gillan.com:

“We are looking for a couple street team members in each of the cities the tour is in to put up posters to help promote the shows. In exchange for your help, we will give you a free ticket to the show and a backstage pass.

In order to get the tickets, you must take a picture of each of the posters that you have posted up, and send them to us. The posters should be posted in bars, record stores, and anywhere where people like to ROCK!

Send a message to marketing@immergent.com with your email address, area you can cover, and number and we will contact you to let you know that you have been selected as a street team member and we’ll send you the posters. This is going to be a great tour, and we look forward to coming to your city.”

Gillan becomes Hoochie Koochie Man

Bob Daisley has posted an update about his upcoming studio album with his blues band Hoochie Koochie Men. Jon Lord will be on the album and Ian Gillan has agreed to guest on two tracks. Daisley says the album is a blues album but with a rock edge and some good arrangements.

DP show in Lebanon postponed

Deep Purple’s scheduled performance at the Baalbeck International Festival in Lebanon on July 27 has been postponed after the Israeli attacks on Beirut. The festival was celebrating it’s 50th anniversary this year. Festival organizers issued a statement Thursday to announce that Thursday’s performance was postponed until further notice.

Blackmore Music Bar

Did you know there’s a bar in São Paulo called Blackmore Music Bar?

John Coletta dead

From deep-purple.net:

“John Coletta, former manager of Deep Purple and Whitesnake, died on July 9th 2006. Tony Edwards approached 35 year old John, managing director of an advertising agency (in an office above his own), to help him launch Deep Purple in late 1967. Coletta remained an integral part of the management of the band through the years 1968 to 1976, often touring with them. After the group split, the two managers set up their own operations but retained their interest in the band’s back-catalogue. John took on David Coverdale’s Whitesnake, and managed them for many years. In recent years John lived in Spain, and was involved with concert promotion there until he became ill last year. He had also been working with Derek Lawrence on some record ideas.”

Concerto for Group and Orchestra in Italy

Jon Lord’s “Concert for Group and Orchestra” will be performed live in Italy by an Italian jazz trio and the “Arturo Toscanini Foundation” orchestra. The jazz band’s members are Vito Di Modugno (organ) , Mimmo Campanale (drums) and Massimo Sutera (bass). Special guests will be guitarist Ricky Portera and popular Italian singer Alberto Fortis.

The shows will take place 20 July in Salsomaggiore Terme (Parma) and 21 july in Rimini. Full details on Deep Purple Italia.

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