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Skills, talent, and plenty of bollocks
A new documentary focussing on Deep Purple Marks 2, 3, & 4. There are no groundbreaking revelations, no original footage, it looks like it was compiled from previously known sources. But it’s nicely put together. For whatever reason, the playback on other sites is disabled for this video, so if you have an hour to spare, head on to youtube to check it out.
Thanks to Rock Voorne and Uwe for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
I had nothing to do with it, Rock posted it in another thread and I just thought it deserves more attention.
September 23rd, 2026 at 04:44At first I thought to go yawning.
I ve been fan so long and saw/read my ass off in an unhealthy way
But even without the mentioned peculiar 1974 comments from Gillan it is a thing that never became clear.
We had confusing statements.
For example by Lord, who had all the time in the world, to ask Ian about in the reunionyears and after RB left.
Saying he never understood what made Ian make write that resignation.
Gillan though leaving himself often expressing bitterness.
Things like ” Seeing your ex making love was not appealling so he claimed never to have listened to the output of the band after.
But at a certain moment he said to ve found the funk on CTBB stunning.
In the link he expresses his positive but critical view on what MK3 was doing.
“Stagnating formula” often was a thing, even years later, he said as a reason to get frustrated.
After RB left in 93 he relentlessly toured the old songs to draw a crowd.
Money and comfort, being in the sun of the brand DEEP PURPLE was a thing he chose in honesty.
At the same time for decades foulmouthing Ritchie,the lies about the TBRO tour.
But also,claiming to have been as much to blame for the split as RB.
Dwelling in exitement about Steve to finally speak about that period in a cold way.
What is it gonna be boy?!
September 23rd, 2026 at 19:59Touchy touchy Uwe. Quick to ‘denounce’ any involvement with this doco eh? We do hope that isn’t because it has the words’ plenty of bollocks’ entailed in the heading, don’t WE, he he he. Oh I just cannot resist, I really need to get a life of some sort. Don’t worry about it Uwe, it is what it is. Nobody will ever think it was you, surely not! Cheers.
September 23rd, 2026 at 23:18@2: I think you get confused because you expect famous people to tell the truth in interviews. It was from Ian Gillan I learned the expression, “never let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
September 24th, 2026 at 06:24I’m not denouncing anything, news-starved about my favorite band as I was for aeons, I prefer even wrong or nonsensical statements about DP to no media mentioning at all.
I was just being supportive to my Dutch neighbor, he’s like an estranged brother with a slightly weird German dialect after all. I haven’t even seen the thing in full yet, but will do.
September 24th, 2026 at 12:09That’s a thing you learn from witness testimonies before court or arbitration tribunals: Very few people actually lie in a situation like that, but almost none give an accurate and comprehensive depiction of the truth either. Your truth, my truth and the real truth no one ever really experiences.
Anybody with a forensic background will tell you, eye and ear witness accounts are the most unreliable form of evidence. Zeugenbeweis ist schlechtester Beweis.
And no story told by a human raconteur stays static over decades. Our memory embellishes and suppresses reality all the time.
September 24th, 2026 at 12:21Svante
Yeah,they all agreed since they made the band to put out illogical statements and lies,just to make fans spin around into their graves with all these mindphucks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEdUEAPSb6g
September 24th, 2026 at 20:41@ 6 -‘I prefer even wrong or nonsensical statements about DP to no media mentioning at all.” Why???????Isn’t there enough bullshit talk in this world as it is? Better the truth shouldn’t we think? Although, I suppose it’s all elephant talk. This world has become far too “noisy’, things are way out of line. PS. I was just having a laugh about the ‘denouncing’ thing. Cheers.
September 24th, 2026 at 22:45Yo,
It’s an OK watch for sure, though the sound is all over-the-place…
Should you need a quickish early-daze history lesson it works fine. Always good to hear No,no,no…Killer tone from the Man-in-black 😉 !
TBRO tour was a great success, both during the RB stint, & after. I was always disappointed that RB left mid-tour of course, & even more surprised / shocked that a healthy 250-k incentive was secretly included so that he partake in the tour…But then we wouldn’t have had the Mk-VI line-up if circumstances didn’t change, & Mk-VI continues to blow-me-away every-time I listen / watch a show.
I did read that out of the 80,000 tickets sold, only 2,500 were refunded (about 3.1%), which is awesome, as it indicates that people still wanted to see the band, even with Satch on-board.
RB throwing water at the smart-ass camera-man is one of the funniest events in DP history imo ! And the solo is hardly compromised lol !
Ciao !
September 24th, 2026 at 22:52Don’t want the truth!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHI0CVu6MSY
September 25th, 2026 at 02:32The camera man wasn’t smart-ass, he was doing the job he was being paid for by the Purple Organisation! Ritchie was being childish, petty and unprofessional. Ritchie had agreed to the gig being filmed (though he deemed it too late in the tour for IG’s voice to still sound good) and then – in a bad mood – started making all these unrealistic demands shortly before the event that would have hampered a professional filming. So he basically threw a fit on stage – as usual with someone who could not have simply taken a cup of water and splashed him back in retaliation. Don’t to to me what I do onto you …
I never thought Ritchie’s “practical jokes” funny, they always reeked to me like a bored and spoiled medieval adolescent prince having his fun with the hapless castle servants. He wasn’t at all good in taking as good as he gave —> the Spaghetti Incident. 🍝
September 25th, 2026 at 13:40Yo,
@11…
I’m pretty-sure that in the “RB Story” video, he indicates that he was provoked by the cameraman before going on stage…
***You don’t eyeball someone at stage-right out-of-the-blue, & then grab a cup of what-ever you can find close to you, & then throw-it-at-them without being provoked first imo…That said, it’s quite funny to watch imo lol ! (And it could have been much worse…( IP’s cymbals were right there too))…
DC’s recollection of “the boys” placing a Marshall amp under the bed of a guest, & then sounding scary noises with voice-over has it’s funny-side imo, especially when that guest has just come home from viewing “The Exorcist” at the local cinema…
At least the boys weren’t well-known for throwing TV’s etc etc from hotel windows, though RB axing down RG’s bedroom door so that he could use his necklace in a seance is much more questionable for sure than throwing a cup of water at someone…
As for the spaghetti incident, you do not ever mess with someone’s food, & I’m sure that IG regretted doing so.
Recent events indicate that all is well at long last !
Ciao !
September 25th, 2026 at 23:25I am surprised that I watched that whole video but it was enjoyable. The thing that stood out to me was Ritchie being self-critical and saying that DP weren’t good song writer but made up for it with superior musicianship. Maybe that is why I love DP so much, but the plethora of DP covers in various styles suggest that the song composition is there.
He went on to say that he needs to stop writing music for himself and learn how to write for the people. This was prophetic in that DP continue to writing for themselves, and after three great rock albums with Rainbow he fired everyone to go in a more commercial direction with several successful pop hits.
September 26th, 2026 at 01:07Ritchie’s accounts over the decades whether Ian ever even did it or not, have varied greatly. I’ve also heard versions from him according to which he mistakenly thought it was Ian who was surprised about Ritchie’s attack and that he (Ritchie) jad to apologize in the aftermath. Anyway, that is all pasta down the garbage bin and in any case more of a symptom for decaying inter-band relations than a cause.
According to Roger, who never lies, Ritchie had consented to the Birmingham gig being professionally filmed though he would have preferred an earlier gig of the tour. He was overruled. Before the gig he threw the toys out of the pram making demands that the camera man should not do close-ups of him which would have impacted the quality of the footage – the band just ignored him and let the camera team get on with it.
I know, Herr MacGregor will now in shining fantasy knight’s armor rush to damsel Ritchie’s rescue and valiantly declare that this was perfectly adult and socially acceptable behavior for a then 48-year-old and wasn’t it all sooooo hilarious anyway? I wouldn’t have seen it that way though, but likely have done what Roger wanted to do, namely bury my bass on Ritchie’s wig. That would have been hilarious too.
September 26th, 2026 at 12:05Ritchie has said that for the longest time that he didn’t think that him or DP were the absolute greatest songwriters. I tend to agree with him. Purple weren’t anything like bad and certainly had their moments too, but there was a tendency to let their instrumental capabilities brawn do the talking and let it elevate material that not always qualified for the pantheon of great 20th century compositions. It was a critique frequently lobbed at DP already in the 70s that their songwriting lagged well behind their virtuoso credentials.
I think Ritchie was simply being matter-of-fact realistic with his statements. And really there are worse things to say about a band than that their instrumental expertise is so good as to even make more average material shine. No one ever wrote that about Status Quo, AC/DC or KISS if I recall correctly.
BTW: I don’t think that DP material has been subject to an expansive cover culture, quite on the contrary. For a band as famous and enduring as them, comparatively few covers are around and certainly not a single one that made commercially any waves and dared to stray much from the original arrangement. When you mention DP to people that are not really fans, but have a faint recollection of the band, the thing that is always remembered first is – besides the you-know-what-the-song-is of course – the Ritchie/Jon instrumental tandem and their wild call & response solos, and not that they have contributed a lot of pages to the Great British Rock & Pop Songbook.
Enough Nestbeschmutzung for now, gather your troops for retaliation! 🤣
September 26th, 2026 at 12:3913 Bob:
The line between Ritchie’s self-criticism and a lie told to give journalists something interesting is very fine…
September 26th, 2026 at 15:55As Uwe recently said: “Give me more purple lies, I love them!”
Aside from stepping too late onto the stage……itself being not special…..
I always thought of the waterthrowing moment as a much ado about nothing.
Somehow it gained momentum because this show was filmed, released and on the DVD cemented with not necessary drivel spoken by the rest of the band.
September 28th, 2026 at 14:24I heard that some of the afflicted wives of the other members were in tears at the incident while a (to her defense: then still very young) Candice was cheering Ritchie on and thought it all quite hilarious.
Herr MacGregor, the Lord Protector of all things Ritchie, will likely come up with an innocent explanation I’m sure, but I have a hard time imaging Ritchie taking it in good humor if he (or Candice for that matter) were splashed during a solo of his on stage by Ian Gillan throwing a filled water cup after a camera man who had caught his (Gillan’s) ire. But then the philosophy of Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi … is very much entrenched with Ritchie, hence his undying love for the very much egalitarian eras of the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. 😌 Me? I prefer the Parisian June Rebellion …
https://youtu.be/1q82twrdr0U
September 28th, 2026 at 18:58There are worse things than a bit of water.
I read something about bottles filled with piss thrown onto a stage.
In 1982 when I attended Rainbow in Vorst Nationaal appearantly some cavemen still used flashbulbs which got thrown on Ritchie who walked out during Spotlight Kid.
Mind you, these flashbulbs became very hot, I still used them myselves 1 year earlier, beginning photography at concerts.
I used a very old camera from my parents.
I shifted to first a PRACTICA which gave great pics, though made in DDR but the whole shebang collapsed and I took a big step to a NIKON
I think I ve an eye for it but technicalities werent spend on me so a reasonably expensive warhorse, bought in 1985 too often delivered poorly.
Oh well…..
September 29th, 2026 at 00:17Yo,
@18…
I’m with Candice as regards to the water-throwing-incident lol ! But..Perhaps even funnier is the recollection & reaction from the rest-of-the-band, as revealed in the follow-up DVD lol ! From memory…
IG qt.”I remember him (RB) categorically stating that Eric Clapton can’t play guitar…So he’s in a world-of-his-own”…
RG qt.”It’s very difficult being on stage when you don’t want to be there”…
IP qt.”If he (RB) gets out-of-bed in the morning with a problem, & it stays with him all-day-long, we’ve got a problem”…
JL qt.”So there he was throwing water all-about-the-place & carrying-on like a spoilt-brat”…
ROTFLMAO ! How can this event & the responses not be among the funniest in DP history ???…( It’s right-up-there with “ET” turning red-in-the-face for wanting to shyte on Cozy when being suspended up-in-the-air by the road-crew whilst the stage was being set-up )…
Ciao !
September 29th, 2026 at 23:02My impression – and not only from the filmed interviews – was that no one in the band thought it funny at the time, Gregster, not even Ritchie who was throwing a fit. This wasn’t one of his practical jokes nor was it showmanship à la Cal Jam, it was spiteful and irate. Maybe frustration that he could no longer have his way with the band as it had been for most of the reunion phase since 1984.
Under less strained overall circumstances, the band might have perhaps shrugged it away as indeed “only water”, but Ritchie’s water sports at the Birmingham NEC were only a little more than a week after Ritchie had handed over his termination letter to the management in Prague. Judging from this 1993 interview compilation here,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jjZ0kb9-0o
where even an otherwise mild-mannered Jon refers to Ritchie as a banjo prat (he goes into a rant at @01:57), feelings were still running high about Ritchie’s behavior during the December leg of the TBRO Tour in Japan.
To refresh apparently fading memories here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2qZJ3BHzjY&t=266s
– Ritchie doesn’t walk onto the stage to commence playing until his solo @03:15 minutes into HS with IG mockingly giving him a hand wave entrance (all credit to Jon for really covering great for the missing Ritchie in the minutes before), imagine what would have happened to any Rainbow member (except Ritchie of course) doing the same thing during Kill the King!
– Blackmore glares and delivers a solo in a standoff fashion, eschewing the original first part of the HS solo and playing very tense (if gifted), @04:03 he apparently catches a glimpse of the camera man – who is standing to the left of the stage (as far away as he can be from Ritchie) – and closes in on him, so enraged he loses timing of his triplets @04:08 only to then stop playing and chuck the water cup in a wide arc at him @04:13.
Not funny at all to me, even after all these years. Rather, Ritchie was having a juvenile meltdown at the ripe old age of 48 and in contrast to his later claims (as pointed out by Roger) the camera man was neiter too close to him (rather he had to walk to the other side of the stage to throw stuff at him) nor standing between him and the audience and blocking the view on Ritchie as the same had feared.
Where I come from, you don’t splash water on people working for you doing their job. Ritchie was apparently having a Naomi Campbell moment, and what isn’t ok for her wasn’t ok for him either. If I had done something like that at my law firm, I would have been unceremoniously fired even as a partner.
October 2nd, 2026 at 03:15@21- Mr doo gooder Uwe Hornung. What a lot of rot you do talk. Spin another one Uwe, it has bells on it. You and your sanctimonious diatribe. Next. Cheers.
October 2nd, 2026 at 08:56After reading into the Ritchie ‘water throwing’ incident again from 1993 with a certain amount of amusement, of which I still find amusing in that aspect. I am now going to create a thread over at the forum about moments in rock concerts that are controversial, either in an amusing way for some or even perhaps a contemptuous one for others. Cheers.
October 2nd, 2026 at 10:16We should ask the camera man whether he thought it was funny. Or perhaps his feelings don’t count because he wasn’t on Burn? That seems to be the underlying sentiment here that Ritchie is such a GOAT hat normal rules of behavior do not and should not apply to him.
“Contemptuous” is exactly the right word. I never got the feeling that Ritchie was ready to take as good as he gave. That to me is a key requirement if you want to do stuff like that regularly to other people.
I’ve been called lots of things, “do-gooder” was not yet among them. 🤗 But if it means that I start feeling uncomfortable whenever people of higher social status and insulated by a protective bubble start playing games on others less fortunate, then I’ll wear that badge pinned on me with pride.
Social Justice Warrior Regards!
PS: I once threatened a fellow partner with physical force after (s)he had intimidated a secretary and reduced her to tears. Stuff like that rubs me totally the wrong way.
October 2nd, 2026 at 21:22#21 Uwe:
I completely agree.
You’ve given practically the same account as the one I read in Pericle Formenti’s Italian fanzine, Purple Glow.
The NEC Arena was a dark chapter in Purple’s history; it was no laughing matter at all.
October 2nd, 2026 at 21:38Yo,
Oh come-on leiber Uwe…This occurrence betters anything that even Spinal Tap presented in their film lol ! ( Though having your guitars wireless system pick-up on the airports radio broadcasts by being played-out through your amp mid-solo comes close lol )…
Lots of great moments in here folks, so download & watch 🙂 !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGSYZeruEiA
Ciao !
October 2nd, 2026 at 23:25In the end it was all for the better. Ritchie overplayed his cards to then be able to rejuvenate Rainbow to, uhum, enormous commercial success and artistic development 🤣🙄🤣. When that didn’t work out like he wished )as it hadn’t done before), he – to paraphrase one of Little Ian’s iconic deadpan quips – “started playing acoustic guitar
alongside his girlfriend singing folk songs while being managed by her mother, so I’m sure it is all VERY professional”. 😈 A GRAMMY for his daring contributions to Renaissance-inspired folk pop cannot be far away if you ask me, you just wait!
And DP, 33 years later, are still making and selling records people discuss, have this site of sites where people from everywhere convene to yell over each other 🙈, and are more often in the mainstream media than they ever were before. That’s pretty good against a torn up Japanese work permit visa in my book.
October 3rd, 2026 at 21:44Yo,
@27…
We can’t change the past per-se, but we can make-light of the events, & laugh things off…Enough time has passed imo for people to see the funny-side-of-things lol !
Though disappointing at the time, a lot of positives did occur for sure, namely the short lived formation of Mk-VI…And now after many listens to many live albums from all eras, the Mk-VI material shines the brightest for myself, with perhaps the “Copenhagen 1972” show equalling the superb performances… – (after-all, without Mk-II, it would seem unlikely that the band would even be around today)…
Ciao !
October 3rd, 2026 at 23:32Uwe Hornung and his childish teen fanzine comments and also editing. It must be a small mindset indeed to go through life with such a chip on your shoulder old son. Ritchie did a good one you and you fell for it big time, that is for sure. I bet Ritchie hasn’t sat around spinning verbal diarrhoea decades on like you have and still are. Sad for you indeed. Everyone is rather bored with the teenage mentally Uwe. Commercial success, yes we get that one too, the same spin from the 70’s that alluded other ex Purple members too. Lets’ not disrupt Uwe’s immature spats though, he obviously needs to keep carrying like the spoilt brat. Who’s gonna win the war? Pathetic drivel indeed. Keep spending your money supporting Ritchie, ha ha ha. what a fool believes eh? Cheers.
October 4th, 2026 at 09:21