Last night in Osnabrück I managed to witness the most interesting Purple gig I’ve ever seen. During the second song (Things I never said) Don´s – or better still Jon´s old – Hammond stopped working, also the keyboard on top of he Hammond, “which is used in many of our songs,” said Gillan.

So Don had to go on playing with the keyboard on his right side only and the syntheziser. For several minutes the technicians tried to fix the Hammond, then they gave up. And so we got versions of DP songs, that were never played before and probably never will again, I think. For example a beautiful piano version of Lazy…

Don showed that he is a master of improvisation, but seemed to be lucky, when it was all over: On stage he fell on his knees and seemed to thank heaven, that everything went that well.

“I hope not,” he told me – grinning – afterwards, when I said to him, that I hope to get a bootleg of this show somewhere. But if anybdy gets one in his or her hand – I´d be thankful to hear from you… It was really a very special evening…

The setlist was the same as in the previous shows, with Living Wreck dropped and Wrong Man added to the set.

Friedhelm Wenning

The boys were back in town, or better said – in the city of the future as Gillan ironically described the venue during the show. However, reframed by the giant excavators from past times the band was in absolutely brilliant condition. Spirits were high on stage whereas the Trinity of Gillan/Glover/Morse had its lion’s share in spreading fun.

The frontman joked that he would have seen English kickers Crouch and Beckham amongst the crowd and later on he was temporarily barely able to sing due to his laughters caused by some irritating but intentionally made tones coming from Morse’s guitar.

The setlist was the same as in Grefrath but added by a long and fulminate version of Speed King with improvisations of some old rock’n’rollers. Even Elvis was covered. Pure madness.

The one and only reason for some criticism is well known: Three tracks from the recent album are definitely not enough to call it the Rapture Of The Deep Tour. Certainly, all of us will never forget the good old songs from Swiss times but their time is running out.

I have no problem listening to these songs. On the contrary, I like and adore them. But the band should add at least two more tracks from the current stuff. The audience would appreciate it. There is also no need to remove the one or other track from Machine Head. They could only play a quarter of an hour longer and that’s it.

But back to a positive final comment: As long as Deep Purple will give such excellent performances as seen in Ferropolis there is no further room for any disappointment. Until now, I have seen the band a dozen of times.

May they remain stainless for still a long time.

Volker Thiele

If you don’t have a copy of the new limited tour edition of “Rapture Of The Deep” (double CD), there is a chance to win a copy at Jukebox.

After I have seen a lot of DP shows over the last 21 years, DP visited a small town very close to my hometown – I could go there by bike!

Only a few words on Alice Cooper – his music and live act is not my cup of tea – but I appreciated the opportunity to have a beer. And I was not the only one who made such an decision.

After the break – 15 minutes for stage-conversion and 15 minutes for the vacuum cleaner – I guess as Ian Gillan has no money for shoes – DP entered the stage with Pictures of home.

After the brilliant Dortmund show in February 2006 with a lot of music from Rapture of the Deep and the excellent Living Wreck – which, by the way, is perfectly associated to Wrong man from ROTD: strong, heavy guitar, dark and awesome organ sound and this amazing rhythm – it is not so easy to get satisfied again.

Furthermore the light show was very much reduced and the TV screens was omitted without substitution due to the small hall – so we couldn’t watch the brilliant dexterity of Steve Morse and Don Airey closely.

So what is there to say. Once again they were fantastic. As it can be read in so many other reviews they smiled, enjoyed their music and did a really perfect job. Ok, the magic moments when Jon Lord did his solos are lost forever and Blackmore is a much more emotional guitar player than Steve Morse (who is a fantastic technician) but I love Steve for keeping this band alive – I really believe he did!

My personal highlight on this show was the re-introduction of When a blind man cries. And I’m referring to a lot of reviewers that were a little disappointed as no songs from Bananas, Purpendicular or The battle rages on (does someone remember the fantastic “Ramshackle Man” with Joe Satriani on guitar – a perfect live song?) were played.

I would really appreciate if they played for three hours next time – this maybe gives enough space to include all songs that I like to hear – or better five hours to be on the safe side.

All in all they did a really good and experienced job here in Grefrath. It was the first time that my 18-years-old son joined me for a DP concert and I believe he’s still wondering how such old guys could make such good music (but he would never admit that).

And me – as always I’m looking forward to see them again.

Setlist (as far as I remember):

Pictures of home
Things I never said
Hush
Rapture of the deep
Strange kind a woman
Fireball
The well dressed guitar
When a blind man cries
Lazy
keyboard solo / Perfect Strangers
Highway Star
Space Truckin`
Smoke on the water

encores:
Blues session for Claude Nobs
(they exercise for Montreux with some help from the audience – it didn`t work)
Black night

kind regards to all Purple – Fans

Markus Horster

Immergent, the record company behind the superlative “Gillan’s Inn” release, has given us details about a contest that has a prize to die for: a trip to see Deep Purple in Nice (France) this coming November, including airfaire and accomodation.

The contest runs until June 17, and includes the following:
– Two (2) round trip coach airline tickets to Nice, France
– Three (3) nights hotel in Nice (one double-occupancy room & taxes, daily continental breakfast for two at the hotel)
– Round trip airport transfers in Nice
– Coordination of all arrangements, reservations and ticketing

That’s a Most Excellent Adventure, to mis-quote Keanu, and contest you do NOT want to miss out on. Check here for more details.

Also, note that our own “Gillan’s Inn” giveaway is still happening, so check out our Gillan’s Inn feature and enter our contest as well.

The latest issue of Sweden Rock Magazine contains a very funny report from the release party for Blackmore’s Night’s new album “The Village Lanterne” at the restaurant Cartouche in Prague.

The reporter is flown to Prague from Sweden only to see Blackmore chatting away most of the night with a Polish tv team. Finally the reporter get access to Ritchie for a couple of minutes and the guitar player gives weird answers, praises Abba and Jethro Tull and says he wants to play rock again (but with Blackmore’s Night). All of a sudden Blackmore’s Night manager, and mother to Ritchie’s girlfriend and band partner Candice, Carole Stevens shows up and is angry because an interview is going on after curfew. Ritchie throws a piece of paper at Mrs. Stevens and explains that he was the one to ask the Swedish reporter to stay.

When the interview is over, the Swedish reporter, who is a big fan of Blackmore, asks for a couple of autographs and all is fine as long as RB signs publicity photos of Blackmore’s Night. When the Deep Purple box set “Listen, Learn, Read On” is taken out, Ritchie asks, “who gets paid for this?” The manager runs away with the box and the reporter is reminded of the story about the guy who got his copy of “Machine Head” ripped to pieces by the mother-in-law. The reporter sets off after Stevens and asks if he can get his box back. Stevens refuses and throws the box into the hands of the Swedish record company representative and says, “this is why Sweden never will get an interview again!”

Something seem to be up in connection with Deep Purple’s appearance at this year’s Montreux Jazz Festival. The other day, festival founder “Funky” Claude Nobs said this to Billboard:

Speaking of casino burning and fire in the sky, you are closing this year with Deep Purple, whose classic “Smoke On The Water,” was inspired by the Casino fire.

It is going to be a special evening. I don’t know who they are going to invite. I hope Ritchie Blackmore will join them. I know they are trying.

Earlier, Pete York announced on his site that a gig he was about to do with Jon Lord on the day of Purple’s appearance had changed:

Unfortunately Jon Lord has to be in Montreux on the 15 July and has had to cancel his appearance in Kitzbühel.

So, are we looking at a Mk. 2 reunion, maybe playing “Smoke on the Water” in celebration of the Montreux Jazz Festival’s 40th anniversary? DP is even featured on the posters to the festival so they are obviously a big part of the festival this year. We have no idea what is happening, this is just speculation based on some cryptic facts but if they do reunite in one way or another, I sure hope they release some kind of recording from the event.

Erik Thomsen was a legendary Danish promoter who over his 40 years in the music business became close friends to lots of bands, including Deep Purple and Rainbow. There are lots of funny stories from ET’s meetings with both bands, many involving Ritchie Blackmore and his unusual sense of humour.

Erik passed away on May 20, 2006. Beside his family, he is missed by the entire music industry. Read more about Eric (and one of those Blackmore pranks) in this nice tribute.

As we reported earlier, Dream Theater covered the entire “Made in Japan” album at some of their concerts in Asia in January. Here is a video of “Highway Star” as performed in Seoul.

Billboard did an interview with Claude Nobs (founder of Montreux Jazz Festival etc) earlier this spring. During the interview, Billboard mention that Deep Purple are closing the festival this year, to which Claude Nobs reply:

“It is going to be a special evening. I don’t know who they are going to invite. I hope Ritchie Blackmore will join them. I know they are trying.”

Read the full interview here.
Thanks to Billboard and Francesco for the information.