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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.
Did you know there’s a bar in São Paulo called Blackmore Music Bar?
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.”
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.
Holland’s musicians magazine “Musicmaker“, has a coverstory (6 pages) on Deep Purple in their latest issue (06/06), which is available in shops in the Netherlands and Belgium since July 5th. Musicmaker has spoken to all bandmembers (except Ian Paice, although he is featured in the article). All instrumentalists list their gear for the current tour.
Mick Box of Uriah Heep has collected a bunch of famous names in rock to sign a white Telecaster which will be sold on eBay with the proceeds going to a cancer charity. Among the people who signed the guitar is the current line-up of Deep Purple and David Coverdale.
Mick has also posted some pics from the gig Uriah Heep did with Deep Purple in Bad Brückenau.
I’m back home from Hell Blues Festival in Norway. Last friday 22.05, Deep Purple went on stage. It was an outdoor concert and it was quite cold. Deep Purple made a solid concert with a mixture of old and new songs.
Pictures Of Home
Things I Never Said
Strange Kind Of Woman
Rapture Of The Deep
Fireball
Wrong Man
Steve Morse guitar solo and jam
Well Dressed Guitar
Junkyard Blues
When A Blind Man Cries
Lazy
Don Airey keyboard solo
Perfect Strangers
Space Truckin’
Highway Star
Smoke On The Water
Encores:
Hush with Ian Paice drum solo
Black Nigth with Roger Glover bas intro
23.42 it all was over.
I might write more in a review later. Pictures will be up as well.
Take care
Benny Holmstrom
It has come to our attention that producer Drafi Deutscher, one of the people who worked on Perfect Strangers (the recording that launched the reunion era) passed away on Jun 9th, at the age of 60. You can read his long and extensive biography (in German, please note) at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drafi_Deutscher
The guys in Deep Purple like soccer and soccer players apparently like Deep Purple. According to news agency Associated Press, Croatia’s World Cup soccer team will attend the Deep Purple show in Bad Brückenau, Germany tonight.
A Billboard magazine interview with Montreux Jazz Festival founder Claude Nobs started a rumour that there was a possibility of a one-off reunion of Deep Purple’s classic Mk. II line-up featuring Ritchie Blackmore and Jon Lord. Everyone involved are now denying this. Here is a comment from Roger Glover:
We are NOT looking for Ritchie (or Jon for that matter) to join us in Montreux. We have contacted our friend Claude Nobs to find out what he was thinking of and he has told us that he didn’t say that. He claims he was misquoted. As a rumour mill, the internet is beyond par; I am still being asked about “Jon Lord’s Dream”, a complete non-story if ever there was one.
Ritchie Blackmore has the following statement on his website:
Most ridiculous rumor of the month! Truth regarding the upcoming Montreaux show is: Ritchie and his representatives have never been approached by the members of Deep Purple, their agents or the organizers of the Montreux concert. The only way that this office has heard of the show is through the fans who apparently are being mislead by false rumors. As you all know, Ritchie left Deep Purple in 1993 – 13 years ago. Ritchie will not be making an appearance at the Montreux show.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing