Deep Purple are confirmed for 4 dates in Australia in April 2024. They will perform at the travelling festival/package tour called Pandemonium, along with Alice Cooper, Blondie, Placebo, Wolfmother, Dead Kennedys, and several other acts. Continue Reading »

Elizabeth the opera singer is drooling all over Rainbow take on Mistreated from Munich’77. Continue Reading »

Dixie Dregs will play eight dates in April, supported by the Steve Morse Band. The mini-tour will start in Nashville, TN, on April 18, 2024, and proceed further south, wrapping up on April 27th in Clearwater, FL. Dregs’ lineup will include Steve Morse, Andy West, Rod Morgenstein, Allen Sloan, with Jordan Rudess on keyboards. No surprises in the opening act: Steve will be joined by the regulars Dave LaRue and Van Romaine.

Tickets go on sale, for the most part, on Friday, January 19, with various presales starting earlier. Check our calendar for full details.

Thanks to stevemorse.com and Blabbermouth for the info.

We’ve written before about that great cover band from Italy called Strange Kind of Women. They continue gigging around the continent, and their upcoming tour is promoted as you see above.

Now, this image is fed into some sort of the neural network (be it the one working on silicon or on regular meat and potatoes caffeine and avocado toast), and — bada-bing bada-boom — next thing you know, said neural network starts hallucinating that the actual Deep Purple are playing in February in Alicante:

Iconic English hard rock band: Deep Purple rocks La Nucia

Rock fans are in for a treat as Deep Purple takes the stage in La Nucia on February 24 at 8:00 PM.

The performance will be held at La Nucia’s Auditorium, Plaza Almàssera, 1, 03530 La Nucía.

Tickets for the event can be purchased online from entradas.com

See the little problem here?

PS. On the positive side, septuagenarian classic rockers never looked that good! 😉

British gear manufacturer Orange Amps is releasing a Glenn Hughes signature edition of their O Bass guitar. On the cursory view, this edition does not significantly differ from the stock guitars, apart from the cosmetics — the bass was previously available in orange and black, while the GH edition is purple. Oh, and about £150 more expensive.

A couple of years ago this company has already released a Glenn Hughes signature amp — also in purple trim, without any other visible modifications from the stock one.

More details on the bass can be found on Glenn’s website.

A new version of the track Rose in Hell featuring Glenn Hughes and Ian Paice will be released on Turkish Delight III album, a project run by UK record label Escape Music. The song was originally featured on the first Moonstone Project album Time to Take a Stand, released back in 2006. The new version features Paicey and Hughes, along with Mike Slamer on guitar, Chris Child on bass, and Adam Wakeman on Hammond. The parts by Hughes and Paice are slightly different takes from the original 2003 sessions, while guitar, bass, and keyboard parts have been recorded anew.

Turkish Delight project is named after Khalil Turk, a chap who runs Escape Music, and is celebrating 30 years of the label. Also, from the extended Purple family, Ronnie Romero (Rainbow), Dino Jelusick (Whitesnake), Steve Morris (Gillan), Brian Tichy (Whitesnake), Greg Smith (Rainbow), Marco Mendoza and Joel Hoekstra (both Whitesnake) are all one way or the other affiliated with the label.

In related news, Escape Music will also release a completely new version of the whole first Moonstone Project album with new production, some new arrangements, new solos, and a brand new track featuring Ian Paice on drums. (Fun fact: for this session, Paicey used the very same old cowbell he used in 1973 for the Burn sessions). The album will be available on limited edition vinyl, CD, and digital. We’ll furnish further details when we have them.

Thanks to Matteo Filippini for the info.

[Updated Jan 13, 2024, to clarify what’s new with this release of the track]

Steve Morse plays a bespoke piece The Pledge written for him by Jason Sidwell and proceeds to explain what, how, and why. Continue Reading »

Steve Morse talks to Rick Beato and plays some music. Dig in! Continue Reading »

Louder Sound is reposting an interview with Glenn Hughes, first published in 2020.

Flying away from the site of the California Jam, Glenn Hughes only twigged that he wasn’t actually under arrest when the ‘policewoman’ sharing his helicopter took off her hat, shook her hair loose and knelt down to unzip his white satin trousers.

Perhaps if he hadn’t been up all night partying with Ozzy Osbourne, or wasn’t still buzzing after performing in front of 400,000 festival goers, Deep Purple’s 21-year-old vocalist/bassist might have realised that his German tour manager Ossy Hoppe was taking the piss when he solemnly informed him that the local police had been handed film footage of Hughes snorting coke behind the amps during the quintet’s co-headlining show on the evening of April 6, 1974 and wanted to have a word with the young Englishman. As it was, the prank “scared the crap” out of Hughes, so much so, in fact, that he politely declined the offer of fellatio from his mischievous airborne travelling companion.

“I was too freaked out to do anything,” he recalls, ruefully. “Looking back, I wish I could have helped her out.”

Dressed in black, and sporting tinted sunglasses, a pashmina scarf and two fistfuls of chunky rings, we join Hughes today in an upscale boutique hotel in Cambridge. The Voice Of Rock, arguably the greatest British rock singer of his generation, is in fine fettle today as he reflects upon five remarkable decades in the music business, a journey which has included stints in Trapeze, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Black Country Communion and some wild adventures with drug dealers, gangsters, movie stars and beauty queens en route. Hughes freely admits that he has “lived the lives of 10 men” and “done everything that you can imagine, good and bad, wonderful and silly.”

“I’m so fortunate not to have died,” he confesses. “I’ve overdosed, been pistol-whipped, shot at, stabbed, run over in a car… and I’m still here to tell the tale. Where shall we start?”

Continue reading in Louder Sound.

An in-depth and well written review of the Deep Purple gig in Bengaluru, India, on December 17, 2023.

Three days after British rockers Deep Purple enchanted the crowd at the Bandland rock festival in Bengaluru, the gooseflesh lingers like the whiff of cologne. For many, they have been college heroes, cocktail companions, the kings of melodic power, the epitome of hard rock. Older-generation fans or youngsters, they knew many of these songs by heart. Every word, every instrumental passage, every back-up vocal line. Na na na na na, Na na na, Hush, Hush.

It was the band’s fifth tour of India. Vocalist Ian Gillan was 49 when they first played in April 1995. The Mumbai concert can be seen on YouTube and heard on the streaming platforms. The frontman was 56 when they played in May 2002. On the current gig, he had gracefully turned 78, his hair a long silvery delight, his shirt glistening in the blue light. The question was: Could he still hit those trademark high notes? Could he do the ‘Child In Time’ banshee-screech effortlessly? Could he bounce around like a young puppy, as he had told this writer 21 years ago?

Obviously he couldn’t. ‘Child In Time’ wasn’t on the set list, and the puppy bounce had made way for a languid soft-shoe shuffle. Yet, maturity and experience can lead to wisdom and discretion. If he didn’t get the screams of the opening song ‘Highway Star’ the way we’re accustomed to, he more than made up with the golden rule of staying totally in tune and managing one’s range. The middle register was immaculate, impeccable. His hand shook while holding the mic on the brilliant ‘When A Blind Man Cries’, but his voice didn’t waver. His singing on ‘Anya’ was a museum model of magnificence. For those hearing him for the first time, it was a dream come true. A story to be shared years later with grandchildren. “I saw Ian Gillan in the flesh”. “You’re serious, grandpa?”

Continue reading in narenmusic reviews.

Thanks to Amit for the heads-up.