Larry Getlen at Bankrate.com did an interview with Ian Gillan recently. Here is a few bits:

About “Rapture Of The Deep”:
“In fact, this is one of the most enjoyable records, in a creative sense, we’ve ever done — very similar to how we worked in ’69 and ’70. The band was very hot, and there was not a single note or word written or preconceived notion of how the album would be.”

“We have some fantastic fans in America, but there’s an industry thing in the States called classic rock. If you were a success in the ’60s and ’70s and ’80s, you fall into that bracket, and consequently you’re considered to be dead and buried. You’re a historical event rather then a contemporary act. Whereas around the world, we tend to be viewed more in the context of the current, living, thriving Deep Purple.”

“The biggest income we make is from live performances, without any doubt. That’s about a 4-to-1 ratio from anything else.”

Read the whole interview here.
Thanks to Bankrate.com for the information.

Tours 2005

Scandinavia plus
North America summer

Tours 2004

UK 2004
Russia & Ukraine
North America 2
Europe
Down Under
Asia
North America 1

Tours 2003

Europe
South America & Mexico
Ripening Tour part 2
Ripening Tour part 1

Tours 2002

Andrew Summerhayes’ 31 years of DP
Solo shows: Paice, Glover, Lord
UK (rescheduled) + CH, Dubai, Greece
Germany
USA, part 2
USA, part 1
Asia
Russia, Ukraine & The Baltics
Ireland & UK

Tours 2001

Paice and York
Europe
North America
Australia, Japan, India

Concerto Tour 1999-2000

South America & Europe
Royal Albert Hall 1999

A.Band.On.Tour 1998-2000

1 – Europe-1 98
2 – USA 98
2a – Editor’s Tour Special
3 – UK & Europe-2 98
4 – South America, Australia, Asia 99
5 – Europe-3 99
6 – Japan, Finland, Greece, etc 2000

Purpendicular Tours 1996-1997

UK, Europe-1 96
Europe-2 96
Europe-3, Japan 96
North America 96
South America 97
Europe-4 & Canada 97
House of Blues, USA 97-98
Ian Paice clinics UK 98

Much older tours…

1968-1995

November 27 marks the 21st anniversary of Deep Purple’s original reunion. Tonight in 1984 Blackmore, Gillan, Glover, Lord and Paice strolled onstage in Perth, Australia for the first time together since 1973.
In 1984 electronic mail was in its infacy. The (very hip) band members were running up and down hotel hall ways to check if their electronic messages had made it from one Australian hotel room, via the States and into the room next door.
No one had even thought of the internet let alone a website called The Highway Star. Yet this was the song they opened their first reunion show with. Just as they’d used it to open their classic shows back in the early seventies, when Ian Gillan told a Copenhagen crowd in 1972 that this (then brand new) song was ‘likely to remain our opening number for the next year or so.’
Ah well, that remark was thrown back at him when interviewed on the same stage for Danish TV in 1993. The band were still using Highway Star to open their shows on The Battle Rages On Tour, which would end on November 17 in Helsinki, Finland. That night put a final end to the Mark 2 line-up. Blackmore packed his bags and the remaining band members decided their second (third?) youth was imminent.
That was 12 years ago this month and who’d have thought we’d now see an inspired Deep Purple without either Jon Lord or Blackmore? Whatever you think about that, the band has just brought us yet another excellent album in Rapture Of The Deep with hopefully an equally exciting tour to follow in the new year.
See you there!

Recently THS has been receiving enthusiastic emails about a new Deep Purple DVD with the words ‘Made In Japan’ in title.
‘Were those Japanese shows really filmed after all? Wow! I can’t wait to get this!’
Sadly, the definite answer is that NO, Deep Purple’s Japanese shows in August 1972 were NOT filmed. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise they’re really just after your money.
The DVD in question has received a neat little write up on the Deep Purple Appreciation Society site which includes the word ‘crappy’, and serves as a warning against those who really think it’s fair to peddle recordings from Ian Gillan’s solo shows under the Made In Japan name. The sooner these rip-off DVDs disappear the better.
Read the full text (scroll down to the pirate flag)

One of the best footballers the world has seen passed away last Friday. Belfast-born George Best, born the year after Messrs Gillan, Glover, and Blackmore, was one of the most unique football players the world had seen. But his career only lasted for about six years, and he’s ever since been famous mostly for his personal problems. For a quick overview, look here.
But why do I donate my first posting in the THS Blog to him?
“Doing their Thing”.
Recorded by British Granada TV on August 21st, 1970, Deep Purple was captured in full stride in glorious colour television, well, basically doing their thing. A heavily edited (ca. 20 mins) version has been availble on video since the 80s, thus making it a wellknown artefact among Purple enthusiasts. Nowadays the prime source for a DVD version seems to be mainly the rather shoddy compilation “Masters from the Vault“.
Amongst the heavily edited versions of “Speed King”, “Wring that Neck”, “Mandrake Root” and the thankfully full version of “Child in Time”, you sometimes see a member of the audience focused. He actually looks quite sober. He’s George Best. I don’t know if he was another guest on the show the same night, or if he was there for some other reason, but even for a young lad (ha-ha) like myself who was too young to follow Best in his glorious years, the legend was big enough to make me jump in the chair the first time I saw the video.
In the early days of the Usenet newsgroup alt.music.deep-purple, I ran into a fan working at Granada TV, and naturally had him check the archives. Sadly, the full Deep Purple show seems to be eternally lost, only the edited version exists. Hopefully, some concious people working with Purple archive releases (you know who you are!) will be able to release “Doing their Thing” in a worthy context sometime in a not too distant future.

I saw Deep Purple Rock in Rio (Rio de Janeiro) the other night. It was a late show, no opening act and Deep Purple hit the stage around 11 pm. “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye” was really hard live. Other new songs was, “Rapture Of The Deep” and “Wrong Man”. Liked the new intro to Highway Star. Looking forward to hear more of “Rapture” live when the tour hits Europe next year.

Benny Holmstrom

There is still a bunch of hardcore Deep Purple fans who stand up against the spam and crap present on usenet these days. They hang out in the original forum for Deep Purple fans, the usenet group alt.music.deep-purple. An idea that came up in the group recently was to map out where on earth the DP fans are. Go to Frappr! and register your presence.

For about a month ago, I wrote a review about Rapture Of The Deep. Since then, I have listening a lot on the album and I still enjoy every minute of it. It’s hard to pick favourite songs, since every one is really good. If it was up to me, Deep Purple could play the whole album live, but as Ian Paice said in the interview I did with him, “they need to translate into live songs”.

Benny Holmstrom

Nick Simper has opened a personal website with all info about what he is up to at the moment. Mike the Webmaster says, “we are still building it, as Nick has to go through all the stuff in his attic, but we hope to have it fully functional pretty soon.”

The Rainbow Fanclan Legacy reports that the classic Rainbow show from Munich 20 October 1977, as broadcast on the equally classic German tv show “Rockpalast”, will be released on dvd in Japan. The 2 dvd set is scheduled for release on December 21. The first disc will contain the show in DTS 5.1 Ch Surround, Dolby Digital 5.1 Ch Surround and Dolby Digital 2.0ch Surround audio. It is not clear yet what the second disc will contain but there are rumours about interviews and clips. More info is available in Japanese at CD/DVD Journal and HMV Japan.

ROTD will be premiered on Swedish national radio on Saturday. Two full tracks will be played and commenting on the album is THS editor Svante Pettersson. Er, that would be me then. 🙂 Tune in to P4 and “Dist” at 18.06 local time on Saturday. The show will be available for one week on the show’s web site.