DVD Review: Deep Purple With Orchestra – Live In Verona

DVD Review: Deep Purple With Orchestra – Live In Verona
Eagle Rock Entertainment
All Access Rating: B+

Deep Purple With Orchestra -
Live In Verona 2014

Any list of the world's most spectacular outdoor concert venues would be woefully incomplete without an entry for Arena di Verona.

Originally built in 30 AD, the beautifully preserved Roman amphitheatre provided a dramatic and elegant backdrop for a glorious 2011 performance from hard-rock giants Deep Purple, backed on this enchanted evening by the full instrumental might of the Neue Philharmonie Frankfort and lushly filmed for a new DVD "Live in Verona" released by Eagle Rock Entertainment.

Lending added weight, complexity and richness to a set loaded with familiar classics, the orchestra – obviously relishing the moment, playing with both passion and precision – pushes and prods Deep Purple to go for broke and drive "Highway Star," "Strange Kind of Woman" and "Woman From Tokyo" like getaway cars used in a daring bank heist. It is, indeed, the thrill of the chase that still moves Deep Purple.

Quick cutaways make the action onstage come alive, the cameras expertly capturing Ian Gillan's expressive wails and honing in with artful subtlety on the virtuoso chops of guitarist Steve Morse, drummer Ian Paice, keyboardist Don Airey and bassist Roger Glover – Morse's fluid soloing brilliance drawing most of the attention, and rightly so. And while they plow through "Knocking at Your Back Door," "Space Truckin'" and "Smoke on the Water" with the usual organ-fueled horsepower of a dependable, rugged vehicle that has a lot of miles on it, Deep Purple is at its best here when swimming in the sonorous, mystic oceania of a breathtaking version of "Rapture of the Deep" and giving a soulful rendering of "When A Blind Man Cries." Bonus versions of "Hush" and "Black Night" make this a package worth getting.

Of course, this isn't the Deep Purple of old, some of the fire of youth having understandably diminished over time, although the visually stunning "Live In Verona" proves they're still eminently capable of burning this lovely setting to the ground when properly motivated. And they are in fine form here, even if the bloom is off the rose, so to speak, when it comes to seeing Purple once again perform with an armada of strings and other classical accoutrements.
– Peter Lindblad

Deep Purple 'Live in California 74' coming soon

Legendary concert made available on CD, digital audio

Deep Purple - Live in California 74

Deep Purple had the world by the tail in the mid-1970s. Bigger than just about anybody in hard rock, with some exceptions, of course, they co-headlined the historic California Jam Festival 40 years ago. To mark the anniversary of that life-changing event, Eagle Rock Entertainment is issuing Deep Purple Live in California 74 for the first time on CD and digital audio on April 1. 

One of the most in-demand live acts in the world at the time, Deep Purple was finishing up a 28-date tour promoting Burn when they hit the Golden State. The CD showcases the band performing before 200,000 people at the Cal Jam Festival. It was a triumphant coda to a glorious march, as the thunderous lineup of Ritchie Blackmore (guitar), David Coverdale (vocals), Glenn Hughes (bass), Jon Lord(keyboards), and Ian Paice (drums) blew the crowd away with a fiery set of songs from Burn, as well as classics like “Space Truckin’” and “Smoke On The Water.”

A legendary performance, the storied concert was previously released on DVD in 2006. The Live In California 74 album is essential stuff. To keep updated on this and other releases from Eagle Rock, visit www.facebook.com/EagleRockEnt, www.twitter.com/EagleRockNews and www.youtube.com/user/eaglerocktv.

Check the track listing. There's no filler.

Track Listing:

1.) Burn

2.) Might Just Take Your Life

3.) Lay Down, Stay Down

4.) Mistreated

5.) Smoke On The Water

6.) You Fool No One

7.) Space Truckin’

DVD Review: Deep Purple - Perfect Strangers

DVD Review Deep Purple - Perfect Strangers

Eagle Rock Entertainment

All Access Rating: A

Deep Purple - Perfect Strangers 2013

None of the members of the Mark II version of Deep Purple could put their fingers on the exact reason why they decided to reunite in 1984, except to say that the timing was right. 

Whenever the question was posed to any of them in the various TV interviews stitched together for the period tour documentary included as bonus footage and providing historical context for the new live DVD "Perfect Strangers," vague, incomplete and stammering answers cautiously escaped their mouths as if they didn't fully understand it either. There was something mystical at work.

Money wasn't the issue. One of the more contentious pieces in the piece, which seems to follow Purple from stop to stop, finds an irritated Ian Gillan bristling at the mere suggestion that a big pile of sweaty cash would entice them to reform when the idea was posited by two TV show hosts clearly angling for an admission that financial remuneration, and lots of it, was what brought them back together after all these years. Gillan said they'd had plenty of lucrative offers to do it since 1973, when the classic lineup simply couldn't bear to continue as they were then configured - his implication being that they would have done it a hell of a lot sooner if that was the only issue holding things up.

There was no explanation for it, aside from the fact that all the planets had aligned for Gillan, Roger Glover, Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Paice and Jon Lord. And certainly none was needed when the magically reunified Mark II crew embarked on a massively successful tour in support of the platinum-selling comeback album, Perfect Strangers, that included this searing, and somewhat mischievous, performance of newer material and older classics Purple gave in Melbourne, Australia one night in '84.

The camera certainly doesn't lie, and neither does the roaring sound and sharp imagery of "Perfect Strangers," filmed smartly and with purpose to conscientiously capture not only the technically brilliant musicianship Purple's always been famous for, but also the explosiveness and wild-eyed euphoria of a group that had plenty of fire left in its belly and was as cohesive as ever.

Firing on all cylinders, Purple slams through a careening version of "Highway Star," riding high-voltage riffs, before getting caught in the wash of the bluesy spin cycle that is "Nobody's Home." With lust in their hearts and a wolfish demeanor, they revel in the surging testosterone of "Knocking at Your Back Door," a song of "low morals," as a devilish Gillian describes it. 

Haunting and mesmerizing, "Child in Time" is dark and beautifully rendered, punctuated by the magnificent, and barely human, screams of Gillan, clad in black leather pants and full of charismatic machismo. Building drama slowly, until the song becomes an exploding star, Purple also smolders in "Gypsy's Kiss," and expands "Perfect Strangers" into something even more exotic and cinematic in scope than on record. Everywhere else, however, the quickened pace of these songs is breathtaking, and the extended jams are furious and full of substantive, agile movements. No noodling is allowed.

The ramshackle, cosmic-hippie grooves of "Space Truckin'" rumble and shake; then suddenly, Purple falls down the rabbit hole of that dizzying chorus and burns up on re-entry. Unexpectedly playful, Gillan and Blackmore break ranks during a brawny, combustible "Strange Kind of Woman" and briefly segue into "Jesus Christ Superstar." And when Purple plows into the anti-war sentiment of "Under the Gun" with righteous intensity, Blackmore's crazed soloing and Hendrix-like showmanship, so gripping here, grows even wilder, with the guitar wizard laying his instrument over an amp and having his noisy, distorted way with it.

Directed for optimum action, with superbly written liner notes, "Perfect Strangers" is the concert film Deep Purple had to release, if for no other reason than to remind everyone that the MK2 lineup had few, if any, equals in a live setting. Nobody plays hard rock with this kind of passion and hunger, not to mention their virtuosity and indebtedness to classical music, just for money. http://www.eagle-rock.com/

- Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Deep Purple – Live in Paris 1975

CD Review: Deep Purple – Live in Paris 1975

earMusic/Eagle Rock Entertainment

All Access Review: A-

Deep Purple - Live in Paris 1975 2013

The balance of power had already shifted within Deep Purple, and Ritchie Blackmore could read the writing on the wall. With the arrival of singer David Coverdale and bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes, Deep Purple was entering a new phase, one that would see the band incorporating more of the northern English soul and R&B sensibilities of its newest members, while veering away from the cyclonic mix of nitro-burning hard rock and swirling classical music that Blackmore and others within Purple favored.

He didn't want to stick around to watch the transformation take hold. On April 17, 1975, the guitar icon, and one of the true architects of Deep Purple’s progressive sound, would play his last note for Deep Purple – that is until the Mark II lineup reunited for 1984’s Perfect Strangers album. He went out in a blaze of glory, as Blackmore’s high-voltage fretwork sends electricity shooting through the digitally remixed – and re-mastered from the original multi-track recordings – two-disc Live in Paris 1975, which documents that final Blackmore performance, prior to forming Rainbow, with amazing clarity and expansive volume. Recorded for optimum impact, Live in Paris 1975 actually benefits from the tension between Deep Purple’s warring camps, as that artistic push and pull fuels what is a dynamic, thrilling, once-in-a-lifetime performance from a band on the verge of big, sweeping changes. 

Sparks fly from the start as Deep Purple, absolutely on fire this particular night at the Palais des Sports in Paris, launches into hot-wired, frenzied versions of “Burn” and “Lady Double Dealer” that leave their witnesses gasping for air – the vigorous riffing and scorching, yet tricky, leads of Blackmore’s playing off Jon Lord’s dizzying organ maneuvers and the precision of Ian Paice’s stampeding drums. Just as feverish, “Stormbringer” is a power surge of insistent, hammering riffs and wailing vocals, loaded with Coverdale’s hairy-chested machismo and illuminated by Hughes’s starry croon. Blending so perfectly, the two give a smoldering, smoky rendering of “The Gypsy” here that offers a vision of what Deep Purple, Mark IV, had in store melodically for the world.

Having dispensed with some of their tighter, more compact material early on, Deep Purple embarked on long, extended jams the rest of the way, including the 20:09 “You Fool No One,” with its Cream-like, bluesy combustibility, a spellbinding organ intro from Lord and stunning drum and guitar soloing from Paice and Blackmore, respectively. Even longer and more abstract, with a playful nod to the theme from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” the classic “Space Truckin’” clocks in at 22:12, and after going into overdrive around the four-minute mark and flying around its familiar routes with reckless abandon and exuberance, Deep Purple goes off in various directions, expanding the possibilities of a song that’s never been bound by limits or borders – the sinewy funk of Hughes’s bass and his improvised singing, so clear and commanding, compelling the band to drive harder and soar higher, even if his lovelorn scatting seems somewhat out of place.

But this is Blackmore’s stage, and his playing is not just technically sound on this auspicious occasion, but it’s also fiery and impassioned. Along with painting the anguished, bluesy expression of “Mistreated,” Blackmore propels “Smoke on the Water” and the closer “Highway Star” – Coverdale lending that track a little more sexual heat than it had previously – ahead with searing six-string savagery and the occasional crazed arpeggio as Purple, its improvisational instincts as keen as ever, plows ahead, gathering momentum and driving both songs straight off the cliff without any fear of what awaits them below. Perhaps the most interesting facet of Live in Paris 1975, however, is the 24 minutes of in-depth interview recordings tacked on as a bonus feature. Set against a backdrop of the music directly piped in from Live in Paris 1975, it’s utterly fascinating to hear members of Deep Purple offer their perspectives on what was happening within the band at the time, while also hashing over studio sessions that birthed some of Mark III’s best work and offering great insight into their creative process. 

The transition was not an easy one for Deep Purple, and substance abuse would eventually tear the Mark IV edition apart, but not before Tommy Bolin arrived to let everyone get a glimpse of his prodigious talent on the vastly underrated Come Taste the Band. On the vital Live in Paris 1975, however, Blackmore made damn sure nobody forgot who made Deep Purple a household name. (www.eagle-rock.com)

– Peter Lindblad