From the pressinfo:

Deep Purple, one of the greatest acts in rock history just clebrated their 30th anniversary. So it’s exactly the right time to release an album packed with titles of the numerous band members of Deep Purple, their solo projects and other spinoff bands.

This album features classics of Deep Purple, Rainbow, David Coverdale, E.L.F., Glen Hughes, Tommy Bolin, Gillan and others.

There’s still an active fanclub and this remarkable double-CD is a must for these loyal fans."

Sometimes I sit and wonder
Sometimes I just sit
I hope you all know
What you’re doing

Anyway
Who needs this thing?

Well, I think the pressinfo isn’t that wrong… This album is for sure not for the typical “have heard some Purple tunes and want to have them on CD”-listener.

But is it for “these loyal fans” of the “still active fanclub”? The song selection and combination isn’t that uninteresting, as it offers a view into the deepest corners of things Purple. But exactly when I hear things I might be not too familiar with, I want to read some information about the songs I’m listening to, about their story and about the people involved. And at this point this album offers nothing. The two-page booklet just shows the names of the bands, the songtitles, the writing credits and the copyright information - that’s all. Not even the names of the albums the songs are taken from…

Too bad “Deep Purple: The Friends And Relatives Album” was released in January - otherwise it would have been a perfect example for a “Cashing In On Christmas”-try…

Reading the announcements of a new Deep Purple live album and video coming out, I had mixed feelings. Of course, as a fan it’s great to get as much live stuff from your favorite band as possible (at least if they still play “hand made” music), but on the other side, there was also live stuff published that better should have been locked away…

Having the same concert shot for video and audio recording added some hope to my mixed feelings - not only IMHO it’s far better to record and publish a complete show in one piece than to cut, copy and paste a so-called live album from the preselected highlights of several different shows. That’s maybe also one reason why so many people prefer a bootleg of high sound quality instead of an average official live recording.

“Live At The Olympia” was already released as a complete audio recording of the so-called “Steve Morse era” - but an official video recording was still missing.

Of course, some shows at the House Of Blues were filmed in January 1998 and one was also broadcasted as RealVideo over the internet - but whoever has really tried to WATCH such Real"Video" had to realize it’s far away from everything that is normally called “moving pictures”. [Some songs of the House Of Blues-shows finally made it to the “A Band Down Under” video, which will also be included on the upcoming TA! DVD release.]

When I heard the first notes of “Total Abandon” I felt a bit disappointed about the sound - it seemed to be too sparse for a perfect live recording. But with the show going on I realized how good the sound really is - it’s one of the few recordings where every instrument is clearly audible during each single moment.

The setlist is a typical “Morse era” setlist - some songs should have been thrown out and replaced by others - but maybe it was a intentional decision because of Purple coming to Australia for the very first time since 1985. On the other hand - wouldn’t that have been a perfect reason to re-include some songs from “The House Of Blue Light” or “The Battle Rages On” into the set?

The video starts as every ordinary rock video, showing how the stage was assembled and then… “Oh my god, why the hell THIS jacket?”. I don’t know if it’s exactly the same one - but it looks at least as the same jacket Ian Gillan was wearing during Deep Purples preformance at the “Harald Schmidt show” on German TV. Lucky me - after some songs Ian Gillan came back on stage area without it :)

The video itself is brilliant - filmed with 13 cameras, it offers a perfect mix between showing a lot of interesting details and changing camera views. Especially the camera above Jon Lord was a great idea - I was really wondering why it took that long until someone finally used that viewpoint - and I’m looking forward to the DVD release which will hopefully show more of that stunning material.

What more to say? - Take a listen/look for yourself!

Right to Deep Purples 30th anniversary, the “30 : very best of” birthday compilation hits the stores. (Anyone took the time to count how many collections are already out there??? :)

Instead of featuring just several tracks taken from two or three albums, this one tries to give a view over 30 years of Deep Purple in rock. Of course there are dozens of tracks that should be featured on such a compilation - and I’m also sure if you tell ten fans to write down the tracks that should be included in such a release, ten different tracklists will come out - because everyone has his own favorites that stand for his personal meaning of Deep Purple - but as CD space is limited, you have to make a selection.
And so also Nigel Reeve, who compiled this release, had to make his selection. A selection that - when first looking at - annoyed me a bit. Where’s “April”? Where’s “Anya”? Where’s “Knocking At Your Backdoor”? were the first questions that popped up in my mind.

In my eyes the tracklist looks a bit unbalanced. There are three tracks taken from the “In Rock” era and four tracks from “Machine Head” but nothing from “Deep Purple”, “The Book Of Taliesyn”, “The House Of Blue Light”, “Slaves and Masters” (yes, “Slaves and Masters” - maybe not the best, but a part of Deep Purple history) and “The Battle Rages On”. To make 18 tracks fit on one single CD, Nigel Reeve also had to take a lot of single versions and edits instead of “full album versions” - a fact that leaves me with some mixed feelings - “Child In Time”, for example, sounds way too short in the single edit.

So who are the people to buy this CD? Sure not the ones who already have most or all Deep Purple CDs in their collection (even if some collectors just might get it because of completism). It’s a collection for those knowing some songs of Deep Purple but never bought an album - and for newbies, as it’s at least an equal route to Purplemania as “Deepest Purple” is.

The Setlist remains the Same - Deep Purple live in Karlsruhe

First of all a big “Hi” to the internet people I met before and after the show… ‘hope to see you all again soon!

The venue was a small hall in Karlsruhe (about 4000 people), which offered a poor sound and really two (TWO!) small doors to let the crowd in…

Opener were German metal band Rage together with a “chamber version” of the Lingua Mortis Orchestra - which featured only 3 of normally 22 people. They played a good show with only two problems:

• the orchestra-people were way too low in the mix

• the setlist - I really don’t understand why they only played songs out of their actual CD “XIII” and a cover of Rolling Stones “Paint It Black”

Purple entered the stage at about 21:20 and played for less than two hours. The band was in a fine shape, especially Big I sounded better than on last tour… A disappointing fact was the setlist: where were the surprises that make a concert exciting? Instead of keeping “Into The Fire” in the setlist (only played once in Germany) and digging out some never-played-live songs, they re-introduced live standards like “Strange Kind Of Woman” and kept songs like “Woman From Tokyo” or “Speed King”.

To sum up: it was a bit like a movie featuring some great actors - but with a script you always have the feeling you know what will happen during the next 5 minutes…

Deep Purple live in Karlsruhe 1998-06-17

Just coming back from the show in Karlsruhe….

Opener were German metal band Rage together with a “chamber version” of the Lingua Mortis orchestra (only 3 people of normally 22). Bad thing was these people were way too low in the mix and Rage played only songs from their actual CD “XIII” and the Rolling Stones cover “Paint It Black”…

Purple entered the stage at about 21:20 and played for less than two hours. The band was in a fine shape, especially Big I sounded better than on last tour…

A disappointing fact was the setlist: where were the promised surprises? Instead of keeping “Into The Fire” in the setlist (only played once in Germany) and digging out some never-played-live songs, they re-introduced live standards like “Strange Kind Of Woman” and kept sogs like “Woman From Tokyo”.

To sum up: it was a bit like a movie featuring some great actors but with a script you always have the feeling you know what will happen in the next 5 minutes…

Tataaaaaa, here it is: The 25th anniversary release of one of the best live recordings of all times - Deep Purples “Made In Japan”.

I wasn’t too sure what to expect: “In Rock 25” set a level that seemed impossible to top for further releases, and “Fireball 25” finally showed me how brilliant the “Fireball”-recording really was. First problems IMHO came up with “Machine Head 25” - the anniversary release of the Deep Purple “hit album” and mega seller - it was nice to get it in excellent sound and also to get the different mixes; but I was missing the things that made “In Rock 25” and “Fireball 25” so exciting - all that stuff that has never seen the light of being published over the years. And now “Made In Japan 25”…!? I already have the original CD release, the “Live In Japan” 3CD set - and now again a 2CD set ahead to buy… sounded a little bit too much to me…

But finally I got the CDs - a typical EMI promotional release - so I can’t say anything about artwork, booklet, etc. The first CD features the original “Made In Japan” in digitally enhanced sound whilst the second CD offers “Black Night” and “Speed King” from Tokyo (17th August) and “Lucille” from Osaka (16th August), all labeled “previously unreleased”.

So I put CD1 into my CD-player, set the amp to “give the neighbours what they deserve” and enjoyed a really blasting version of the original “Made In Japan” set. I haven’t compared it to the mixes on “Live In Japan”, so I can’t say anything about further enhancement or things like that; but I can say for sure that it sounds damn fresh for a 25 years old recording.

Then it was time for the second CD. I was a bit disappointed when looking at the running-time: only about 22 minutes - so it has just the usual Maxi-CD problem: you put it in the player, press “start” and don’t need to walk away very far, because you have to change the CD soon again. So I set my CD player to “loop mode” and what should I say? I didn’t change the CD during the next 2 hours. This CD really rocks! “Black Night” is a really nice take of that song - same goes for “Lucille”; but the real highlight is “Speed King”. Not only that is is a very electric and dynamic version of that song - it also captures a moment when something within the audience seemed to go wrong. I can’t exactly say what it is - maybe a struggle between the audience and security which Ian Gillan tried to solve - hopefully the booklet of the final release will tell us more.

So at the end there are just five words to say “Buy it, you won’t regret!”