Pollstar reports:

“Deep Purple hung on to the last minute before canceling its appearance at Baalbeck, Lebanon, only pulling out when the Israeli bomb and missile barrage spread to that city.
‘The band and the festival have agreed it’s best not to go,’ The band’s booking agent, Agency Group chief Neil Warnock, told Pollstar after Liza Minnelli and Lebanese diva Fairouz canceled their summer shows.

At the Gillan’s Inn site, you can download versions of “Smoke on the Water” without lead vocals and lead guitar. You can then add your own talent and upload your version to the site. If you have a band, you can record the song from scratch and upload that.

The visitors to the site vote for the best track in each category and every week, one submission will move on to the finals based on the average votes of the visitors. At the end of the contest, Ian Gillan will choose one winner from each category.

The winners of the Vocal and the Lead Guitar categories will win a trip to Las Vegas to perform live with Ian Gillan at the House of Blues.The winner of the Band category will receive gear for their band.

The complete rules for the contest is available here and more info about the prizes can be found here.

The other day, we posted a news report based on Deep Purple’s press release about the band still wanting to go to Lebanon. I added some info from my local Swedish morning paper on the town Baalbeck to the news story to add something that the other reports didn’t have. Mention of the Baalbeck info in the Undercover report about the story made me realise they must have quoted us in their report. Without any credits to us.

Then Swedish media agency PM went on to quote Undercover. So now we have Swedish papers printing the PM story, and by that quoting another Swedish paper by way of THS and Undercover in Australia. Without credits both to Sydsvenskan and us.

I want to add that I don’t think the missed credits are a big deal, although it is a bit bad that the journalists doesn’t mention where they take their quotes from. But it is funny to follow news around the world in this day and age.

On Thursday July 20, the first annual Jeff-fest will take place in Newcastle, UK. The event is a celebration of legendary British DJ Little Jeff who passed away earlier this year. Then night will feature a charity auction with proceeds going to Radio Lollipop, the British Diabetes Association and FreemanHospital. Ian Paice has contributed with two items for the auction:

1 – A meet and greet for two people at Deep Purple’s Newcastle Metro Radio Arena show on April 21, 2007.
2- The opportunity, at the same show, for the winner to sit beside Ian’s drum roadie (who sits beside Paice) for the show, to see it from that angle.

The major issue for most fans is that the auction will NOT be taking outside bids, so the bid must come from within the venue – the hopefuls will have to be in Newcastle or have soemeone there to bid for them.

We were so glad to see Deep Purple live again. We wish they played more ROTD songs, but the gig was awesome as usual.

Ian looked so nice in his white shirt and blue jeans. We wonder why he doesn’t wear this sort of trousers more often. They suit him so well.

One weak point of the show: there was something wrong with the instruments. Steve’s guitar was too loud. Sometimes we could hear neither Ian nor his harmonica. What a pity. If we stood in the middle, we’d hear him better, of course, but then we couldn’t see the stage:).

Regardless of this we had the time of our life. And so did the band. Both Ians, Steve, Roger, Don – each one of them was smiling and showing off, especially Ian Gillan who stuck out his tongue at a camera man. 🙂

As for the newest songs, only Things I Never Said and Rapture of the Deep were played. We wonder why Before Time Began was taken out. Ian is so proud of this song …

A surprise: Hush was played in the middle of the show, not as an encore. And we were very glad to hear When a Blind Man Cries again.

Very nice gig. We wish the band played longer. But even if the concert lasted for five hours, it wouldn’t be enough. Thanks, Don, Roger, Ian, Steve, Ian, you were great!

Joanna Ostrowiecka & Zenek Kołota

I’m an old Deep Purple fan, but I admit I haven’t heard them so much for the last 10-15 years. From the experience given at “Rock under broen” (rock under the bridge, Middelfart, Denmark) this is wrong – ‘cause I really never heard so much power in DP as yesterday.

We were probably about 20.000-25.000 left after a long, long, extremely hot summer day when DP ended the show. And usually heavy rock is not the easiest music to get a hold in the masses from – but DP succeeded.

It was pure nostalgia. Gillan was extremely good, Glover was great – so was Paice. Airey was on the top – and very noisy. But to me the biggest surprise was Morse: I’ve never heard him live before, but boy, could he play guitar – it was fantastic.

One of the greatest things to me was their happiness – it’s not a band of young, angry men – but a band that just seems to love, what they are doing. Even though it was a mixed audience (not a pure DP fan club) Morse had us singing ‘the sound of his guitar’ – and I believe we did great. Gillan also succeeded in getting people to sing along – and not just on Smoke on the water.

Lazy. WOW! Strange kind of woman – I loved it.

Basically I only missed Child in time (and a bit of my own old favourite Woman from Tokyo) – but then again, it’s always a question of what to choose and what to leave out. But what they had chosen, they just performed marvellously.

But please: Get that zipper fixed … 😉

Erling Laursen, born again fan

At the Arrow Classic Rock Festival in Holland my wife Jannie and I saw both Whitesnake and Deep Purple on the same day and it felt kind of strange. No doubt that mr. Gillan’s shape both in figure and especially voice was much better, though mr. Coverdale is quite some years younger. We got the same opinion from our friend Mario, who is lead guitarist in the Dutch DP tributeband Purplerainbow.

Deep Purple played for about 90 minutes, but only a few songs from the Rapture album. They started with Pictures of Home and ended with one encore being Black Night. I was very happy with the great performance they did of When a blind man cries, my personal favourite.

In spite of the fact that DP had severe troubles with the sound due to an annoying buzz in the mic and a squeek now and then with Steve Morse’s guitar, they performed well and had some laughs. We were very lucky with the good shape of mr. Gillans voice. Impressive.

During Smoke on the Water they had a guest, Neal Schon of Journey, who played earlier at the festival. Unfortunately his guitar was a bit low in the mix and he looked a bit shy (!) next to Steve Morse who encouraged him to go more upfront.

We thank the guys for another 90 minutes of warm feelings for Deep Purple, our beloved best hard rock band in the world!

Greetings,
Dirk de Hen

We scrambled our way to the front at the very beginning of the show, 13.30, although I wanted some more time at the beer tent and time to chill and have some food. But no, my wife, Margaret did not want to miss a thing. So we stood for 10 hours.

Once she had pole position, there was no moving her. At the front on the rail and in the crush. 51 years old and she loves it. We had our toes crushed, my legs don’t feel like they belong to me, my forehead was well sunburned and we were lathered in sweat along with everyone else. Body odours were running high and climbing. The marshals were great, running around with cups of water for everyone, although they could have brought me a bucket.

The show started as we arrived. Right from the beginning it was obvious that there were some sound problems. I thought ‘OK, it’ll settle down.’ It did for a while, then it started again and carried on through the show. For some bands the sound was great, for others not so good.

The musicians that stood out to me were Ted Nugent, Thunder, Journey and of course Alice Cooper. They were all great. Then came the moment… Deep Purple!

Things kicked off well enough with Pictures of home, Things I never said and Hush. Then Rapture of the Deep started without the keyboards. Steve on his own and it was obvious there were some problems, but hey, what do we come to see Deep Purple for? It’s a different story every show and it’s great to see how they get out of trouble when things do go wrong. That’s when you fly by the seat of your pants.

When a Blind Man Cries stood out as a master guitar class. One of the best I’ve heard, and I have Gillan’s Inn. The sound was great too and Steve was well on form.

Lazy started OK. Then just at the crucial moment Steve’s guitar went off, and I thought how the hell are they going to get out of this? These are all split second thoughts and I’m sure it’s the same on stage. Don brought it back nicely and Steve slid back into it without a flaw.

Once again sound problems on the keyboard solo and didn’t seem to hit home. Sack the guy on the desk. The rest of the show was Deep Purple with a capital DP and at the end the crowd was gagging for more.

See you at Lichtenvoorde and the Montreux Jazz Fest.

Love to Purple people everywhere. Keep on Rockin’.

Margaret & Peter Howdon-Brown

Pictures of Home
Things I Never Said
Hush
Rapture of The Deep
Strange Kind Of Woman
guitar solo
Fireball
When a Blind Man Cries
Lazy
keyboard solo
Perfect Strangers
Space Truckin’
Highway Star
Smoke on the Water
Black Night

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

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