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Older Tours...
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

Steve Morse guitar clinic in Halmstad 5. July 1996

Well, it sort of just happened. Waiting around outside the band's hotel I met Steve as he was leaving with a bag and a guitar together with a Swedish minder. He told me to come along because Steve was going to do "a little thing" just down the street... Steve and his minder took a backentrance into a pub/bar thing and I joined the long queue in front of the main entrance, figuring that this might be one of those clinics I'd heard about, but started wondering what I was really queueing for when I saw Ian Gillan enter the same backentrance as Steve had done! Once inside it became obvious the local music store (instruments, not records) had arranged a Steve Morse guitar clinic and Gillan was merely watching from the back of the room, stood anonymously in a corner behind everyone else.

It turned out to be a very enriching afternoon. Steve fiddled around with his equipment before he got started and throughout the clinic he performed a few of his solo songs together with Band In A Box (a DAT of his band backing him!). Things got off to an interesting start when he asked us how much we'd paid to get in. Admittance had been free of charge and so Steve reasoned that he couldn't understand why a guy near the front thought he'd bought the videorights for the clinic! Would he please hand over his videocamera and Steve would hold on to it until the clinic was over. Nevermind that I'm an avid bootleg collector myself I thought this little incident and Steve's reasoning quite apt. He explained that at clinics such as this he likes to be able to answer everyone's questions honestly and knowing he's only talking to a limited number of people he feels he can do this on most occasions, however if he has to take into account the vast number of people who might get to watch such a videotape "or hear one of the audios I believe are being made among you as well" he felt he couldn't be as straight forward about things. Nuff said.

He explained a lot of technical details about guitarplaying which I won't (and couldn't) repeat here, but also answered other types of questions. The crowd of mainly Swedish musicians "checking him out" seemed a little too cool for his likings and he tried to lighten things up quite a few times, attempting to do away with the seriousness of it all. One guy asked if he'd be doing a particular song from his solo career during the show later in the evening, to which he explained that yes, he'd also be doing this and that and numerous other things from his solo career! This caused a little laughter and he explained that with Deep Purple he plays Deep Purple music, and when he's on his own he plays his own music. I think this a very sensible way of looking at things. I always thought stuff like Wild Dogs and Satch Boogie stood out like sore thumbs on previous Purple tours. Like the guitarist in question wasn't content with "just" being the DP guitarist, but wanted to be a solo artist as well at the same time.

The clinic ran quite late in the afternoon - and had been delayed too, so there wasn't as much time for taking questions as I thought Steve would have liked. He urged everyone to come to the show later on and check Deep Purple out - seems silly of people not to go, I thought - I'd travelled from the other end of Denmark to see Purple and these people practically lived here!

Rasmus Heide

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