Anorexorcising The Vaults: Nirvana unauthorized 5 CD live box set reviewed

 

[review by Bill Glahn]

Nirvana: The Broadcast Recordings 1987 – 1993 (5 CD box set, Sound Stage  SS5CDBOX25)

Venue: (Disc 1) Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA 4/17/87 (disc 2) Paramount Theater, Seattle, WA 10/31/91 (disc 3) Pat O’Brien Pavilion, Del Mar Fairgrounds, CA 12/28/91 (disc 4 & 5) Hollywood Rock Festival, Praca Da Apoteose, Rio De Janerio, !/23/93

Tracklist: (disc 1) Love Buzz/ Floyd The Barber/ Downer/ Mexican Seafood/ White Lace and Strange/ Spank Thru/ Anorexorcist/ Hairspray Queen/ Pen Cap Chew (disc 2) Happy Halloween> Jesus doesn’t want me for a Sunbeam/ Aneurysm/ Drain You/ School/ Floyd The Barber/ Smells Like Teen Spirit/ About A Girl/ Polly/ Breed/ Sliver/ Love Buzz/ Lithium/ Been A Son/ Negative Creep/ On A Plain/ Blew/ Rape Me/ Territorial Pissings/ Endless, Nameless (disc 3) Intro/ Drain You/ Aneurysm/ School/ Floyd The Barber/ Smells Like Teen Spirit/ About A Girl/ Polly/ Sliver/ Breed/ Come As You Are/ Lithium/ Territorial Pissings (disc 4) L’Amour Est Un Oiseau Rebelle (Jam)/ School/ Drain You/ Breed/ Sliver/ In Bloom/ Come As You Are/ Love Buzz/ Possibilities (Jam)/ Lithium/ Polly/ About A Girl/ Smells Like Teen Spirit/ On A Plain/ Negative Creep/ Been A Son (disc 5) Blew (listed as on disc 4)/ Heart-Shaped Box/ Scentless Apprentice/ Sweet Emotion (Jam)/ Dive/ Lounge Act/ Anheurysm/ Territorial Pissings

Cover: Magnificently presented clamshell box set with an 18 page booklet and individual sleeves, each containing different graphics. The booklet contains period articles from The Seattle Times (November 1, 1991) and Circus magazine (November 1993) mixed with more photos throughout. None of the photographers are credited, but many are easily identified as the iconic photographs of Seattle photojournalist, Charles Peterson.

Sound Quality: C to A (see review)

Review: The “greatest” generation fought against tyranny and oppression to rid Europe of the greatest fascist threat of our lifetime. The same generation also produced McCarthyism and two major wars in Southeast Asia. The next generation, through massive protests, brought an end to the Vietnam War and made great advances in civil rights without firing a shot. And then promptly embraced the Capitalist concepts of property and competition, thus declaring war n the very earth itself. Many wars have followed. It makes you want to scream. There are no great generations, only great deeds, usually communal in nature.

Music is a reflection of society. In 1987 Kurt Cobain screamed.

It was a primal scream, both vocally and instrumentally. An in-studio broadcast was arranged at Evergreen State College’s KAOS radio station, at a time when the band consisted of Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic, and original drummer Aaron Burkhard. Not having settled on a name yet, they played under the moniker Skid Row. As a historical document, disc one fails significantly. There are no unreleased songs, some of the songs having seen previous release on the pre-death Incesticide compilation or the post-mortem box set, With The Lights Out.  Not to mention the numerous bootleg compilations that preceded With The Lights Out before the major labels decided to play catch up on historical recordings.

On this recording all the songs are returned to their proper order, but it’s still missing the final track, “Help Me, I’m Hungry.” But that’s the least of its problems.

The version of the KAOS broadcast presented on The Broadcast Recordings 1987-1993 (hereafter referred to as TBR) sounds as if it were taken from a 10th generation cassette mastered by a kid on a PC trying to figure out his brand new copy of Cool Edit Pro. All he’s found is the noise reduction tool, massively applied. All the sustain is gone from Cobain’s guitar. There is no room ambience at all. Between songs, and sometimes during them, the recording drops into dead digital silence. The instruments and vocals are all still there but, putting it politely, it comes off sounding like fingernails on a blackboard. 

Combined with the fact that you’ve probably heard better rhythm sections in a thousand different bar bands, this is not a good start for TBR.

Sound improves greatly on disc two. It should. Despite TBR’s claims of being from an October 31st, 1991 broadcast on KNOD, it is the same recording featured on the official Live at the Paramount video. Well, at least now you can play it in your car old CD player. Not much of a recommendation here either. Newer model cars will play the official DVD just fine.

Disc three, also with stellar sound, offers up a common Westwood One radio broadcast from Del Mar Fairgrounds in California. While some of these songs appeared on the official From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah live compilation, the full broadcast has remained in the hands of unauthorized releases, such as a similarly titled 3LP set from a couple of years ago - The Broadcast Collection (Parachute) which combines this recording with an Australian broadcast from 1992, a Seattle broadcast from 1993, and some SNL appearances. Vinyl collectors with deeper pockets might find that one more attractive, but for the budget-minded, it works perfectly fine here.

The Westwood One broadcast, although truncated to fit 1-hour radio slots (with advertisements) doesn’t document the entire concert, it does find the band much more developed than the early days. Now with a competent drummer in Dave Grohl and with Novoselic having learned his instrument, not to mention Cobain’s refinement of his shout/distortion approach to songwriting, this is a powerhouse performance. Young ears were listening and identifying. Recorded shortly after their breakthrough album, Nevermind, the Paramount and Del Mar performances find Nirvana light years beyond the 1987 KAOS days. In fact, they were on their way to super-stardom, a spotlight that not everyone is equipped to deal with. At any rate, the grunge generation had found their representative voice. Nevermind shot up to number 1 in the charts. Bleach, released 2 years prior, would follow to top 100 album chart success upon its re-release in 1992 and a platinum record award.

Onward to discs 4 & 5…

 As recording stalled on a follow-up to Nevermind, worldwide demand for new Nirvana music didn’t. An album of rarities and b-sides, Incesticide, was released in late 1992. Amid Cobain’s various ailments and the band’s increasing dissatisfaction with Steve Albini’s production, Nirvana performed two large-scale South American rock festivals in Brazil, the second in Rio De Janeiro broadcast by MTV-Brazil. On the bill were also The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Flea joins the band on “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as a trumpet player. Also included in the set list are the, as yet, unreleased “Scentless Apprentice” and “Heart-Shaped Box.” It’s a fine performance with a fine mix, although the stage rust shows. Cobain’s vocals waver in and out on occasion, most likely due to him moving off-mic rather than a problem with the recording. The band, however is not as tight as they were in 1991. Flea’s trumpet playing is more novelty than inspired musicianship. Novoselic’s (?) attempts at witty between-song commentary can be irritating. 

Still, it’s a decent performance from a troubled time and worth inclusion. There are genuine moments of inspired aggression mixed in throughout, no more so than on “Negative Creep.” Easily found on the Internet for around $30 + shipping, I’d give a solid recommendation, despite its flaws. Seasoned collectors will already have this material. But for those younger fans of live music who want to explore what all the fuss was about, TBR is a worthy entry level set, even if you’ll never listen to disc 1 more than once. With four solid discs at a 2 for 1 cost and a packaging you’d expect from a major label, it’s a bargain.

Closing on a philosophical note, an ability to look outward as well as inward might make the current generation the greatest one in my lifetime. Stay involved. Keep marching. Don't despair.

Roll The Tapes: Glenn Hughes - Life After Deep Purple

ROLL THE TAPE: BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION & GLENN HUGHES

Rev. Keith A. Gordon 

ARTIST: Black Country Communion

VENUE: John Henry’s Ltd., London England; 09/20/10

SOURCE: “Live in the Studio” FM broadcast

SET LIST: Black Country /One Last Soul /Beggarman /Song of Yesterday /Stand (At the Burning Tree) /The Great Divide /Medusa /Sista Jane

COMMENTS: Formed in late 2009, Black Country Communion was a British/American classic rock “supergroup” comprised of blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa, singer and bassist Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple, Trapeze), keyboardist Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater), and drummer Jason Bonham, who has played with everybody from Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers to Foreigner, the Quireboys, and his own solo bands. BCC was named for the “Black Country” area of the West Midlands in England where Hughes and Bonham were born and raised. Featuring a sound that was a throwback to the classic rock jams of the ‘70s (a sound that Hughes helped create and define), the band’s 2010 self-titled debut displayed a lot of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple influences alongside those of more contemporary rockers like Soundgarden and Queens of the Stone Age.

This incredible first BBC performance in support of their debut album occurred the same day as its release, September 20th, 2010, as a showcase in front of a handful of people (around 100) – radio contest winners, music journalists, and such – and launched the band’s first “Black Country Tour.” It’s an explosive performance, with Glenn Hughes, known as “The Voice of Rock,” in perfect form, with songs like the opening “Black Country” displaying his enormous energy and ability to create electricity with his expressive vocals. Joe Bonamassa is an extraordinary guitarist who masterfully captures the zeal of blues-based ‘70s hard rock with his tough-as-nails guitarplay. Jason Bonham, the son of legendary Led Zeppelin big-beat percussionist John Bonham, proves that he’s his father’s son with the ability to both punch his way through a performance or support the other instrumentalists with his subtle fills and brushwork. 

It’s keyboardist Sherinian, who has also played in Alice Cooper and Billy Idol’s bands, who is often lost in the mix here, overshadowed by the overwhelming force of nature that is his talented bandmates. Nevertheless, his keys are an essential ingredient, adding texture where needed as the performance of each song here has the impact of a hurricane-strength shockwave. Whereas Hughes – a skilled wordsmith dating back to his days with proto-metal rockers Trapeze – pens most of BCC’s lyrics, one of the best songs from the LP is Bonamassa’s “Song of Yesterday,” which is provided a white-hot take here with the two frontman swapping vocals, Bonamassa’s fretwork taking flight above Bonham’s blistering drumbeats. 

“The Great Divide” is afforded a larger-than-life performance that leaps out of your speakers and demands attention, with roaring vocals, imaginative slash ‘n’ burn guitar, and rhythms that sound like lightning bolts tossed to Earth from Mount Olympus. A cover of what is, perhaps, Trapeze’s best-known tune, “Medusa,” is updated and re-charged (and was actually added to the debut album as an afterthought). The song displays the full range of Hughes’ impressive vocals, from the soulful balladeer which opens the track to the vocal gymnast with the pipes of a Robert Plant or Ian Gillan that grinds out the lyrics alongside the band’s nasty instrumental groove. The band’s chemistry is quite apparent even this early into their roughly decade-long career, and while Hughes is just doing what he’s always done – sing his ass off – with Purple, Sabbath, or his solo albums, BBC also allowed Bonamassa to explore a different musical direction from his day job as, arguably, blues music’s favorite and best-selling artist.     

A note about the venue here – evidently, John Henry’s Ltd. is a multi-purpose facility geared towards the entertainment industry. Located in central London, a band can rent equipment, rehearsal space, and tour transportation as well as store their gear when not on the road. John Henry’s also offers a full range of production services, including studios for TV and radio broadcast, live recording, and even album production. Maybe this is why the band chose this venue for its “coming out” party, the secret showcase also broadcast on FM radio in London. This show has circulated in tape trading circles for years, and the sound quality is pretty good – a notch below true CD quality, but better than many more “legit” concert releases. Capturing the band’s impressive first performance, it’s well worth tracking down for Black Country Communion fans.  

# # #

ARTIST: Black Country Communion

VENUE: “Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea IV” cruise; 02/26/18

SOURCE: Fair audience recording

SET LIST: Sway /One Last Soul /Save Me /Wanderlust /Song of Yesterday /The Outsider /Cold /The Crow /The Last Song For My Resting Place /Man In the Middle /Black Country /Mistreated

COMMENTS: This performance is from the February 2018 “Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea IV” cruise, departing from Miami (not Tampa), Florida and sailing to Montego Bay, Jamaica. Blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa is the star of these cruises, and the driving force behind them as the founder of the Keeping the Blues Alive Foundation, which had raised over $180,000 as of this event to help fund scholarships and music programs for students and teachers across the country. Aside from Bonamassa’s usual solo set during this “floating music festival,” the cruise featured a “special reunion” of Black Country Communion as well as performances from both well-known artists like Los Lobos, North Mississippi Allstars, JJ Grey & Mofro, and Chicago bluesman Toronzo Cannon as well as up-and-coming talent like Ana Popovic, the Marcus King Band, and Larkin Poe, among many others.   

The BCC “reunion” came in the wake of the release of the band’s fourth and, according to Bonamassa, final album, BCCIV, in September 2017 just months before this cruise performance. To be fair, BCCIV did mark a reunion for the band after a five-year hiatus where both Bonamassa and Hughes toured heavily as solo artists. BCC only performed a handful of concerts in England in support of the album before setting sail, and the setlist for this performance is fairly balanced, including four songs each from the band’s first two albums, four songs from BCCIV, and a cover of Deep Purple’s “Mistreated.” Noticeable by its absence are any songs from the band’s third album, 2012’s Afterglow, widely considered by fans to be the weakest of the four LPs to date. 

The performance cranks up quickly with the bombastic “Sway,” a song that perfectly displays Hughes’ soaring vocal style, but is itself driven toward the edge of chaos by Bonham’s staccato drumbeats and Bonamassa’s stylized riffing. It’s a heady performance designed to set the audience on its collective heels from the first note. “One Last Soul,” from the band’s debut album, was also that LP’s first single, and it sounds as devastating in 2018 as it did in 2010, showcasing the soulful side of Hughes’ vocals. The mid-tempo “Wanderlust” is an electrifying cross between Zeppelin and Soundgarden with an FM radio-ready vibe that would have sounded natural blaring out of the speakers of a ’73 Challenger. 

“The Outsider,” also from the band’s debut, hits your ears like a runaway locomotive teetering down steel rails with flames licking the tracks. Hughes’ metallic vocals ride atop Bonamassa’s razor-sharp guitar while Bonham’s drumbeats explode like artillery shells and Sherinian’s keyboard riffs dance maniacally in the flames. Bonamassa jokes about the ballad “The Last Song For My Resting Place,” about a musician on the Titanic, being an “appropriate” song for a cruise ship, but the band sinks its teeth into it nonetheless, with Bonamassa’s plaintive vocals accompanied by his scorching guitar solos. BCC revisits Hughes-era Purple with a blistering attack on “Mistreated” from the band’s 1974 album Burn. After a truly satisfying instrumental intro that will singe yer ear hairs, BCC slinks into a solid groove for Hughes to show both the strength and subtlety of his vocals while Bonamassa cuts a solo worthy of Robin Trower or Jimmy Page.   

The lack of dynamics on the recording seem like it was made by an audience member, with a hollowness and echo that sounds like it was recorded in the ship’s bilge. Still, there’s definition to Hughes’ voice, Bonamassa’s guitar rings clearly, and only the bottom-heavy rhythms really get muddy in translation. Knowing the Bonamassa organization’s reputation for quality live recordings and their ability to capture the most filigree nuances of a performance; if this is a soundboard recording, it’s a raw tape at best. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, as it’s still a rocking concert guaranteed to satisfy fans of BCC, Glenn Hughes, or Joe Bonamassa.

# # #

ARTIST: Glenn Hughes

VENUE: Alcatraz; Milan, Italy; 04/10/19

SOURCE: possible soundboard/audience matrix

SET LIST: Stormbringer /Might Just Take Your Life /Sail Away / You Fool No One /You Keep On Moving /Gettin’ Tighter /Holy Man /Mistreated /Smoke On the Water, Georgia On My Mind /Burn

COMMENTS: As mentioned above, Glenn Hughes is a rock ‘n’ roll lifer who first came to prominence as part of late ‘60s hard rock pioneers Trapeze before replacing Roger Glover in the bassist’s seat with Deep Purple in 1974. With Purple, he shared vocal duties with David Coverdale on the band’s three mid-‘70s albums and supporting tours. Hughes has enjoyed a lengthy solo career with better than a dozen albums under his belt since his 1977 debut Play Me Out, and was a member of Seventh Star era Black Sabbath with guitarist Tony Iommi. He’s also collaborated creatively on recordings with various guitarists like Iommi, John Norum, Pat Thrall, and Joe Satriani and, as an in-demand session player, Hughes has lent his talents to albums by artists as diverse as Gary Moore, Gov’t Mule, Quiet Riot, The KLF, and Night Ranger, among dozens of others. 

Aside from his tenure with Deep Purple – for which he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2016 – Hughes is more recently known as a member of Black Country Communion, releasing four studio and a live album with that band. Throughout much of 2019, however, Hughes trotted across the globe with his “Classic Deep Purple Live” tour, recreating some of the band’s songs for adoring fans. It’s an interesting gambit, as what could more-or-less be considered the best-known line-up of Deep Purple is still trodding across the planet and performing “Smoke On the Water” and “Highway Star” along with new material for diehard DP fans. Still, Hughes performed 46 shows in 2019 as part of his Purple remembrance tour, including a couple dozen North American dates as well as stops in Germany, the U.K. and other ports in the European Union.

According to the tour’s official Facebook page, Hughes’ backing band for this show at the Alcatraz club in Milan, Italy included guitarist Soren Andersen, keyboardist Jesper Bo “Jay Boe” Hansen, and drummer Ash Sheehan, who also played with the tour’s opening band, the Dead Sea Skulls. It’s a pretty deft crew backing the legend, and they take these classic Purple songs and reimagine them for the modern age with performances and arrangements that enhance rather than merely mimic the original versions. The raging “Stormbringer” (from the 1974 album by that name) is provided a machine-gun performance with Hughes spitting out the lyrics above a thunderous clamor of screeching guitar and stomping percussion. “Might Just Take Your Life,” from 1974’s Burn, is every bit as malevolent as the original, with Sheehan’s drum rolls building anticipation while Hansen’s Jon Lord-styled keyboards create a dark-hued ambiance.

Also from Burn, “Sail Away” is one of that album’s better songs; here it provides a showcase for Andersen’s six-string prowess as the guitarist rips and tears through the song while Hughes growls the lyrics with cymbals crashing in the background. “You Keep On Moving” and “Getting’ Tighter” are two tracks from the underrated 1975 LP Come Taste the Band, the former galloping out of the gate to Sheehan’s double-fisted drumbeats and Hughes’ thundering bass lines while the latter is a bluesy rave-up with stinging Andersen guitar solos, Hughes’ best Chicago-styled vox, and gorgeous Booker T/Stax soul keyboard riffs. Although he didn’t appear on the original recording of “Smoke On the Water,” you can bet that Hughes has performed the song a time or two over his lengthy career, and here it’s provided a jazzy guitar intro before the band plows straight ahead with reckless aplomb into the familiar plodding riff that announces the song to the world. The encore, featuring the title track from Burn, does just that, the performance cutting through the mix like a plasma torch, the band combusting like magnesium meeting water. 

 

Overall, the band is engaged in the performance of these classic-era Deep Purple songs, but longtime fans may chafe at the expanded and imaginative arrangements provided some of the tracks. This is 20th century Purple brought into the new millennium with young blood and new energy. The setlist relies heavily on songs from the three Deep Purple LPs that Hughes was part of, and he picks liberally from the songs on each to create an entertaining and inarguably rocking concert experience. The sound quality is a bit dodgy, a fair-to-middling soundboard or possibly a good audience recording, with a shallowness that sometimes blurs the lines between instruments and muddies up the vocals. It’s an electrifying performance overall, however, and for those old-school Purple fans who aren’t afraid to color outside of the lines, you might find something here to like.

Bonus views:

 

 

CD Review: Copperhead Live at Pacific High Studios 1972

 

(review by Rev. Keith A. Gordon)

COPPERHEAD (FEATURING JOHN CIPOLLINA)

Live At Pacific High Studios San Francisco 1972

(Air Cuts)

VENUE: Pacific High Studios, San Francisco CA, 01/23/72

SOUND QUALITY: Not as good as you might think for a FM radio broadcast. Aired live by Bay Area radio powerhouse KSAN-FM, this eleven-song performance sounds like it was recorded in a deep well. Air Cuts is a Cypress-based label that specializes in releasing unofficial recordings of vintage radio shows, i.e. “copyright gap” recordings. In the CD liner notes, they state that “although the sound may not (despite extensive professional remastering) always be of the highest quality, we are sure that you will enjoy the musical experiences of these wonderful performances.” OK…

COVER: I haven’t had any previous experience with any Air Cuts’ CD releases, but I’ll give credit where credit is due – the packaging of this Copperhead performance is top-notch. No skimpy jewel case insert and tray card, nosirree, Live At Pacific High Studios is afforded an attractive eight-page, sepia-toned booklet with a bunch of B&W photos of guitarist John Cipollina and the band accompanied by uncredited liner notes that wrap up the too-short Copperhead story with a bow on top.  

TRACKLIST: Introduction /Kibitzer /Highway #9 /Spin-Spin /I’m Not the Man I Used To Be /Sidewinder /Drunken Irish Setter /Dancing Shoes /Good Time Boogie /Keeper of the Flame /DJ > Ads /Bigelow 6-9000 /Roller Derby Star > DJ Outro

COMMENTS: If Quicksilver Messenger Service were the psychedelic siblings of better-known (and more successful bands) like the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, guitarist John Cipollina was the heartbeat of QMS. Cipollina’s distinctive lead guitar and creative solos fueled albums like 1969’s Happy Trails and Shady Grove and, when combined with fellow guitarist Gary Duncan’s jazz-flecked rhythm playing, made for a joyous noise, indeed! With the return of original QMS singer/guitarist Dino Valenti in 1970, the band’s sound changed from the blues-and-jazz-tinged, psych-drenched improvisations of their early albums towards a more commercial hard rock direction. Cipollina left QMS in 1970 after the release of the band’s What About Me album, although he’d later reunite with the gang for an underrated 1975 effort, Solid Silver.

The guitarist subsequently formed the short-lived Copperhead around veteran San Francisco musicians Gary Philippet (vocals and guitar), Pete Sears (bass), Jim McPherson (keyboards), and David Weber (drums), which is the line-up that performed Live At Pacific High Studios. The band had been rehearsing material for months and had only gigged a few times locally when legendary San Francisco DJ Tom Donahue asked them to do a live broadcast for KSAN. The band’s eleven-song performance is fairly standard, early ‘70s meat-and-potatoes rock ‘n’ roll with a touch of blues and boogie stirred into the pot alongside Cipollina’s imaginative guitar-playing. 

The McPherson-penned “Kibitzer” includes a mesmerizing guitar riff beneath its propulsive rhythms while “Highway #9” is a rollicking, twangy number with deep roots. In the ‘coulda-would-shoulda-been’ FM radio hit department, “Spin-Spin” offers a strong vocal performance, scorched earth guitar, and an overall underground rock vibe that was hot stuff in the early ‘70s. The booger-rock of “I’m Not the Man I Used To Be” was a precursor to bands like Jo Jo Gunne and Humble Pie, the song’s roller-coaster rhythms balanced by Cipollina’s reckless fretwork. The bluesy “Drunken Irish Setter” reminds of Irish guitarist Rory Gallagher with similar guitar style, blues roots, and overall song structure which is to say that it burns like an out-of-control wildfire. 

The ballsy but unremarkable “Dancing Shoes” is a faded carbon copy of every single tale of rock star excess that the decade would produce; much better is “Good Time Boogie,” which spices up the familiar gumbo with truly manic guitar playing and scattergun vocals. “Keeper of the Flame,” which was reportedly recorded for a second (unreleased) Copperhead album, is a soulful, mid-tempo rocker with a bit of Southern gospel flavor that could have been another FM radio hit during the era. The show-closing “Roller Derby Star” is a spry performance with unusual time signatures, rowdy vocals, and bruising guitarplay.     

Columbia Records’ Clive Davis was an early supporter of the band, and clearly saw Copperhead as a potential commercial blockbuster like the Airplane or the Dead. By the time that the label released the band’s self-titled debut in 1973, Sears had been replaced by Bonnie Raitt’s bassist John “Hutch” Hutchinson, but otherwise the line-up was the same. It’s indicative of Copperhead’s ever-evolving sound that only three songs from Live At Pacific High Studios – “Kibitzer,” which is more rambunctious on the studio LP; the aforementioned potential radio hit “Spin Spin;” and “Roller Derby Star” – made their way onto the subsequent debut album. A shortened version of Roller Derby Star was released as a single but in spite of the band’s efforts, touring heavily in support of the album, a lack of label enthusiasm (Davis, the band’s champion, had since been fired) caused Columbia to shelve a possible second album and cut the band loose. Philippet (as “Gary Phillips”) would go on to play with Earthquake and the Greg Kihn Band while Sears landed a cushy position with ‘80s-era hitmakers Jefferson Starship.     

Cipollina is widely-considered to be one of the major architects of the 1960s-era “San Francisco sound” but, after Copperhead’s short-lived run, he mostly wandered around the Bay Area until his death in 1989 at the too-young age of 45 years. He played with Welsh rockers Man for a while during the mid-70s, and throughout the ‘80s he performed with regional groups like the Dinosaurs (alongside Country Joe & the Fish’s Barry Melton), Thunder & Lightning (with bluesman Nick Gravenites), Terry & the Pirates and, at the time of his death, with the unrecorded band Zero. He never got the recognition or accolades he deserved save in hindsight, critics looking favorably upon his contributions to rock music in retrospect. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine placed Cipollina at #32 on their list of “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.”     

There’s precious little Copperhead music to be found in the wild, beginning with self-titled major label album which, as of this writing, is only available as an import CD. According to a 1975 interview with Cipollina in the British music rag Zig Zag, the band recorded 15 songs for Columbia at the time. They used eight songs for the debut LP and planned on using the other seven as the bulk of their second LP. To the best of my knowledge, none of those songs have been released legitimately. Aside from Live At Pacific High Studios, there’s also a “copyright gap” CD released in 2014 by Keyhole Records. Live At Winterland, September 1st, 1973 documents an engaging ten-song performance that offers fairly good sound and includes six songs from the debut album along with four songs presumably from what would have been their sophomore effort. It’s well worth looking for if you’re a Cipollina fanboy. Grade: B-

Bonus views:

Back pages: A plethora of Deep Purple bootleg reviews

 

[We continue to celebrate the release of Deep Purples new album with some vintage reviews from the print editions of Live! Music Review, All written by our in-house expert on all things Purple related, Stephen Wunrow, Available on the Internet for the first time.]

Deep Purple: Oldenburg ’71 (Black Suede BS-11, Japanese release)

Venue: Oldenburg, Germany 4/11/71

Sound Quality: Supposed to be a soundboard but most likely a very good audience recording, vocals on the thin  side but guitar is nice and loud.

Cover: Rare photo of the Mk II lineup in a cemetery. (Chopin’s grave? Paris?)

Tracklist: Speed Ling Strange Kind of Woman/ Child In Time/ Into The Fire/ Mandrake Root

Review: Here’s a show of a previously uncirculated tape from the halcyon days of the Purps. Deep Purple’s live show was reaching a peak that would shortly be eroded by constant touring and increasing internal fighting within the group.

Oldenburg was a part of a quick four day German tour that the band undertook in the middle of the recording of the Fireball album. “Strange Kind of Woman” had just been released as a single and they had already incorporated it into their stage act.

The band takes awhile to tune up and then start with a furiously paced “Speed King” that has Jon Lord and Richie Blackmore playing off each other beautifully. :Strange Kind of Woman maintains the energy, with three melodically blistering solos from Blackmore, before settling down for the opening verses of “Child In Time.” “Into The Fire” is pure heavy blues, which Gillan introduces as “rock ‘n’ roll with it’s trousers down…,” precisely. “Mandrake Root,” as usual, showcases the instrumental prowess of Lord, Blackmore, and Paice while injecting an occasional sense of humor along with the musical anarchy. The tune never ceases to amaze me and is, to me, what Purple is (was) all about.

Not only is this a great document os the band but a great show as well from a period of the band where not much of good sound quality survives.

[November 1996 issue of L!MR]

Deep Purple: White Nights (Crystal Sound CS 21/22, Japanese Release)

Venue: Gothenburg, Sweden 12/11/73

Sound Quality: Not a bad audience recording taken from a vinyl boot release, Truckin’

Cover: Good live photo from that period of the band and graphics are up to the usual Crystal Sounds standards – much better than the original vinyl release design.

Tracklist: (disc 1)  Burn/ Might Just Take Your Life/ Lay Down, Stay Down/ Mistreated/ Smoke On The Water/ You Fool No One (disc 2) Space Truckin’/ What’s Going On Here?

Review: This is a fun one. It showcases the newly revamped Mk III version of the band as they were breaking in the two new guys, Glenn Hughes (from Trapeze) and a nervous nobody, David Coverdale on vocals.

DP did a few warm-up dates in Scandinavia, and this performance is perhaps the second or third time that the new band had played together. What the band loses in the way of a tight performance is more than made up for by the sheer terror the guys must have felt to “make good.” The adrenaline is almost palpable and makes for an interesting show.

Another added bonus is the inclusion of “What’s Going On Here” from the Burn album, which was released the following month. It didn’t really work too well as a live number, however, and was soon replaced by the old rock standard, “Going Down.”

This CD is scarce but worth tracking down, as the vinyl edition is long out of print.

[November 1996 issue of L!MR]

Deep Purple: More Tastes (Show Co. SC-9447-1819, Japanese release)

Venue: Tokyo, Japan 12/15/75

Sound Quality: Varies, but generally a very good audience recording

Cover: Good use of obscure rehearsal photos of the Tommy Bolin version of the band

Tracklist: (disc 1) Burn/ Getting Tighter/ Smoke On The Water/ Wild Deogs/ I Need Love (Soldier of Fortune) (disc 2) Owed To G/ Drifter/ You Keep on Moving/ Stormbringer/ Highway Star/ (bonus tracks) Fireball/ You Fool No One/ Hush

Review: Here is an important document of the band that is probably only of interest to Bolin or Deep Purple fanatics as it shows just how far the band had fallen.

Dee Purple was not operating on all cylinders here with Bolin’s drug habit increasingly getting in the way of his brilliance. This is one of the four Japanese shows the band performed.

As for the bonus tracks, “Fireball” is from Sheffield 1971 and “Hush” is from their live appearance on the Playboy After Dark TV show in 1968. The next track is interesting because it shows exactly how far the band had fallen in just eight short months. It’s a performance of “You Fool No One” from their Spring 1975 European tour, probably Paris (Blackmore’s last show with the band in the ‘70s).

[November 1996 issue of L!MR]

Deep Purple: Locked in a Paper Cage (no label, Japanese release)

Venue: Irvine, CA 5/23/87

Sound Quality: A few gens down from a soundboard tape

Tracklist: (side 1) Highway Star/ Strange Kind of Woman/ Unwritten Law/ Dead or Alive/ Perfect Strangers/ Hard Loving Woman/ Bad Attitude/ Child in Time (disc 2) Difficult to Cure/ Knocking at Your Backdoor/ Space Trucking/ Black Night/ Folk Songs/ Smoke on the Water

Not much on CD has been released from this era of the band. This is the whole show(a single CD was previously released called Dead or Alive) and  of generally good soundboard quality. In fact, it’s perhaps a better overall performance than their official live release of this tour called Nobody’s Perfect, it’s  certainly more honest!

Good luck finding this CD though. It was originally only available as a bonus if you bought a ten CD box set of Japanese Deep Purple releases.

[November 1996 issue of L!MR]

Deep Purple: Live in Tel Aviv 1991 (DP-23-5, Japanese release)

Venue: Tel Aviv, Israel 9/28/91

Sound Quality: Excellent, from radio broadcast, DJ introduces and talks over each song (which might be a plus if you don’t enjoy Joe Lynn Turner’s between song blather!)

Cover: Live shot of Blackmore, graphically treated with Hebrew lettering

Tracklist: (disc 1) Black Night/ Truth Hurts/ Cut Runs Deep/ Perfect Strangers/ Fire In The Basement/ Hey Joe/ Love Conquers All (disc 2) Ritchie’s Blues/ Knocking at Your Back Door/ Lazy/ Space Trucking/ Highway Star/ Smoke On The Water

Review: This is “alternative” version of DP (with ex-Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner usurping Gillan’s role) doing an “alternative” world tour. The band performed in countries they never had before (Israel, Greece, South America, Eastern Europe) to make up for the relative lack of interest in America and Europe!

This is one of the two dates they played in Israel that were set up on fairly short notice. The band was playing very well, though Turner’s vocals and between-song schlepping border on cabaret.

Recommended for those into the more commercial sounding era of the band. Blackmore does deliver the stuff, however, especially during the “Ritchie’s Blues” segment. It’s five minutes of pure magic as he jams, doing his middle eastern scales and tones, which is very appropriate here!

[November 1996 issue of L!MR]

Deep Purple: Ritchie Last Gig (no label, Japanese release)

Venue: Oslo, Norway 11/1593, bonus tracks from Helsinki, Finland 11/17/93

Sound Quality: good sounding audience tape, bonus tracks not so good

Cover: Nothing special, cardboard sleeve

Tracklist: (disc 1) Highway Star/  Black Night/ Talk About Love/ A Twist in the Tale/ Perfect Strangers/ Difficult to Cure/ Knocking at Your Back Door/ Anyne’s Daughter/ Child In Time/ Anya (side 2) The Battle Rages On/ Lazy/ Space Trucking (w/ Woman From Tokyo and Paint It Black)/ Hush/ Speed King/ Smoke On The Water/ (bonus tracks) Anya/ Hush/ Speed King/ Smoke On The Water

Review: This comes from the second to last performance that Blackmore (to date!) performed with the bans, the four bonus tracks are in fact from “Ritchie’s last performance in Helsinki two days later.

It’s a great show and the band really takes off during “Child In Time,” with Gillan’s voice in fine form. Ritchie then gets even more inspired as they charge into “Anya” and treats us to a long, beautiful guitar passage. Another long quiet solo starts “Smoke,” in fact he can’t stop soloing throughout and after the song. Rich knows the end is near and chooses to go out in style.

This is another release that was originally only available if you bought a ten CD set. It’s well worth the effort to track down, however.

Blackmore and band were playing together at a higher level here than during any of the previous reunion tours, a bitter sweet end to a band at the height of its powers. 

[November 1996 issue of L!MR]

Deep Purple : Fireball Over Madrid (DPCD 09/10, European release)

Venue: Madrid, Spain, bonus tracks from BBC sessions

Sound Quality: good audience tape

Cover: Poor quality rip off of the official CD release, Come Hell or High Water

Tracklist: (disc 1) Highway Star/ Ramshackle Man (listed as “Real Gentlemen”)/ Maybe I’m a Leo/ Fireball/ Perfect Strangers/ Pictures of Haome/ Knocking at Your Back Door/ Anyone’s Daughter/ Anya (listed as “Gipsy Heart”) (disc 2) The Battle Rages On/ When a Blind Man Cries/ Lazy/ Space Trucking/ Speed King/ Smoke on the Water/ (bonus tracks) Speed King/ Bird Has Flown

Review: The band gets a good reception partly because of Joe Satriani being such a star there however the overall performance is flat. Gillan sings well but there weren’t many sparks flying from Satriani’s guitar.

Part of the problem Satriani had in DP is that he never quite got the hang of playing with them and did quite a bit of over-the-top soloing. Satch jams in the notes with very fast licks and tries to say something that ir would take Blackmore three or four notes to do.

On the other hand, no one an be expected to have instant raport on stage with guys who’ve been playing together for 25 years or more.

To their credit, they do perform some never-played-before classics but Satriani still can’t muster up enough emotion to make me care very much. The battle had more or less stopped raging within Deep Purple.

Currently, however, all is not lost. Purple have a new album and guitarist, Steve Morse, who seems to be a much better fit with the band.

[November 1996 issue of L!MR]

Deep Purple: Smoke on my Mega-Mix (Nitelife N-042)

 Review: This is a release that the average Deep Purple fan should consider passing up, unless you can find it relatively cheap (yes, it’s another Japanese pressing and probably goes for about $40 or so).

It’s another release of various odds & ends by the world’s most dysfunctional (and best) hard rock band.

The first two tracks from the BBC Top of the Pops radio show has DP Mk. I (the original with vocalist Rod Evans and bass Nick Simper) playing live in the BBC studios. These performances are already available on at least three other compilations, however, the difference here is that the tracks are direct from the master and of excellent quality, much better than on the versions previously released.

The first track is “Painter,” from their third album released in 1969. Here it’s performed much more energetically. Blackmore is the catalyst with his psychedelic/hard rock riffing and his Hendrix-inspired wah-wah peddling.

Track two is Purple’s version of Donovan’s “Lalena” (also from their third album). DP’s version manages to turn it into a great rhythm and blues shuffle, highlighting Lord’s impressive Hammond playing with Blackmore doing some tastefully restrained finger work on the guitar. They instill a passion and power in this cover version that was lacking in Donovan’s hippy/trippy original. Heck, Rod Evans even sounds good.

The next three tracks (“Might Just Take Your Life,” “Lay Down Stay Down,” & “You Fool No One”) are also from the same BBC Top of the Pops radio show but aren’t live performances. They’re simply the studio versions with DJ voice-overs.

The score so far: Two keepers and three wastes of space.

Th next three tracks are also taken from UK radio; “Smoke on my Mega-Mix,” “Mixed Alive,” & “Smoke on the Water (Mega Mix).” The first two were issued as a promo, mail order only, 7” single (obtainable only if you bought four 12” DP singles, issued in 1985 to promote the newly reformed DP. If you clipped the coupon from each single and mailed it into EMI, they presented you with this obnoxious thing).

The third mega-mix track is previously unavailable (I think) and it’s merelt two minutes of annoying edits and hiccups of the famous “Smoke” riff. All three may be remotely interesting for one play through, but they get irritating awfully fast. Chalk up three more dubious wastes of space.

The next track is an “outtake” from the 1985 Perfect Strangers sessions not included on the vinyl release. It was, however, included on the CD and cassette versions. It’s a good number and gives the feeling of the old “In Rock” days of the band, which was sorely lacking on much of the rest of the album.

It’s billed here as the “censored” version, which means that it simply has the lyric “fuckin’” edited out. Big deal. Another wasted track.

The last two songs can be placed in the keeper column. Both are from the 1991 Joe Lynn Turner era of the band. They were commercially available briefly, but in limited quantities and it’s worthwhile getting them back into circulation.

The first one is “Slow Down Sister,” only available in Europe as a bonus track on the 12” and CD of the “King of Dreams” single. It has a nice “Stormbringer” riff and feel to it. If you’re going to steal, you might as well steal from the best and from yourself.                          

The next trackis pretty difficult to find now. It’s titled “Fire, Ice and Dynamite” and is from the European-only release film soundtrack of the same name. There was a CD and vinyl soundtrack released but the bombed, literally, and they were soon deleted. It’s a bit more commercial sounding than “Slow Down” but has a good groove to it and Blackmore puts in an above-average performance.

Next are two bonus, surprise tracks, not listed on the CD, two brief, unreleased sessions from the “Smoke on the Water” all-star jam (Rock Aid Armenia). The resulting single had various rock/heavy metal musicians performing the old classic to benefit earthquake victims in Armenia in 1990. These two unreleased sessions may possibly appear on the Japanese commercially released video, The Making of Smoke On The Water, Rock Aid Armenia , which was a behind-the-scenes documentary of the project – worth picking up if you can find it.

The first has Lord blazing away on his Hammond, with Gillan doing the refrain. It ends with some nice guitar work, possibly by Alex Lifeson of Rush.

The next session has Blackmore blistering away doing some very inspired jamming over, around, above, and beneath the famous riff. If you listen closely you can hear Paul Rogers giving him some words of encouragement. Nearly worth the price alone to hear this! 

So, all in all, over half the disc is fairly worthless but if you tale in consideration the cool cover, taken from the impossibly rare Japanese original edition of Shades of Deep Purple and color inside photo (the last DP Mk. II photo taken) and you’ve got some extra cash lying around, you might as well go for it.

[December 1995 issue of L!MR]

Deep Purple: Worth The Wait Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 (Kiwi Records KR-007/8)

Venue: Providence Civic Center 3/5/85

Sound Quality: Very good to excellent audience recording

Cover: Same graphics as the original double album release from the mid-‘80s that was boring and unimaginative. Packaged in two separate single CD slipcases

Tracklist: (disc 1) Highway Star/ Nobody’s Home/ Strange Kind of Woman/ Gypsy’s Kiss/ Perfect Strangers/ Under The Gun/ Lazy (disc 2) Child in Time/ Knocking at Your Back Door/ Difficult To Cure/ Space Trucking/ Woman From Tokyo/ Speed King/ Smoke On The Water

Review: This is an interesting document of the then recently reformed classic line-up of the band. It’s also a show that I was able to attend!

The Providence performance was nearly half way through their USA ’85 tour and shows that the band is still hungry and eager to impress, an attitude that they started to lose during the latter part of this tour and most of their subsequent tours.

Another reason that this show has more of an edge to it is that it was filmed for a documentary on the band, as was the previous night – also in Providence. The footage still sits in the DP archives somewhere and would have been a much better live release than their official live album, Nobody’s Perfect. Only a small portion of the documentary was ever broadcast and that was on French TV.

This is one of the better releases from their ’85 tour. It’s reasonably priced and of European origin.

[September 1996 issue of L!MR]

Rainbow: Black Shadows (Oxygen OXY 26)

Venue: Dusseldorf 10/9/95

Tracklist: Too Late For Tears/ Long Live Rock And Roll (w/Black Night/ Hunting Humans/ Wolf To The Moon (keyboard and drum solos)/ Black Masquerade/ Ariel/ Since You’ve Been Gone/ Perfect Strangers/ Hall o The Mountain King/ Burn/ Smoke On The Water

Review: Having been pretty disappointed with Rainow’s recent studio release, Stranger In Us All, (currently available only in Europe and Japan), I wasn’t too eager to hear what the band was doing in a live environment.

Curiosity won however, so I started checking out some of the latest live CDs from their tour at the end of last year.

This is one of the better releases available. The source is from a German TV broadcast and the computer generated artwork is good. The guitar playing is superb at times but these momentary flashes of brilliance aren’t enough to carry the tired, old Rainbow formula anywhere too exciting. In fact, Blackmore’s got the old Rainbow sound down so well that the past 12 years with Deep Purple see never to have happened at all.

What really makes me grumpy about all of this is that Blackmore is undoubtedly at the height of his powers and playing ability (as apposed to Page, Clapton and most of his other contemporaries) but he chooses to squander it all by rehashing old Rainbow riffs, which weren’t that original to begin with.

Case in point is the first track on the CD, “Too Late For Tears,” which is simply a reworked version of “Can’t Happen Here” from a 1981 Rainbow release. The new singer, Dougie White, even manages to sound exactly like Joe Lynn Turner, one of Rainbow’s previous vocalists.

“Hunting Humans” has a bit more atmosphere and at least tries to break some new ground musically, but is mostly ruined by fairly trite and banal lyrics.

“Black Masquerade” is another early ‘80s type Rainbow rocker but has some great and energetic guitar work going for it. This, as I see it, is Rainbow’s main problem. When Blackmore decides to have a good night, he will blow everyone away and overcome the constrictions of the Rainbow format and mediocre musicians he’s surrounded himself with.

The problem is that in the old Deep Purple days when Blackmore had an off night or wasn’t into it, you could always watch and enjoy Gillan, Lord or Paicey. With the current line-up, there’s nowhere else to go.

That being said, the next track, “Ariel,” is almost brilliant and the highlight of this CD. It’s passionate, intense, and full of beautiful “middle eastern” guitar passages.

The rest of the CD is up and down with cooking versions of “Perfect Strangers” and “Burn” from the old DP glory days but a lame “Since You’ve Been Gone” and pointless “Hall of the Mountain King.” Ritchie did it much better in 1965 on a solo single where he retitled it “Satan’s Holiday” under the group name of The Lancasters, a USA only release and well worth tracking down. Rumor has it that Keith Richards also guested on the sessions.

There’s another European release of this same show called Prince of Darkness that includes “Spotlight Kid” and “Greensleeves-Scottish Drinking Songs,” both of which are marginally more interesting than the keyboard/drum solos (yawn) that were deleted. The cover is daft, though, so stick with Black Shadows. It’s a good document f the 1995 version of Rainbow.

[July 1996 edition of L!MR]  

Roll The Tapes: Deep Purple's The Long Goodbye Tour

[reviews by Rev. Keith A. Gordon] 

ARTIST: Deep Purple

VENUE: BBC Radio Theatre, London England; 11/16/17

SOURCE: FM Broadcast (BBC Radio 2)

SET LIST: Time For Bedlam /Fireball /Bloodsucker /All I Got Is You /Uncommon Man /The Surprising /Lazy /Birds of Prey /Perfect Strangers /Smoke On the Water

COMMENTS: The British hard rock scene of the 1970s was rich with talent and imagination, bands like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, UFO, Uriah Heep, Wishbone Ash, Humble Pie and others dino-stomping their way through stadiums, arenas, and hockey sheds on several continents. Few of these turbo-charged rock ‘n’ roll leviathans endured into the new millennium, and only two that I can think of – Purple and Heep – have continued to consistently make vital, energetic music to the present day, Deep Purple recently releasing its 21st studio album, Whoosh!, in August 2020.

Deep Purple has enjoyed what is essentially the same line-up since 1994, including founding member Ian Paice on drums alongside the creative one-two punch of singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover. Guitarist Steve Morse took Richie Blackmore’s seat at the table in 1994 when the fabled string-shredder decided to pursue the Renaissance full-time. Keyboardist Don Airey, known for his stints with Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath, replaced the retiring (and beloved) Jon Lord in 2002, so this is an old group with decades of musical chemistry to draw upon. This particular show – a 2017 FM broadcast from the BBC Radio Theatre in London, England – is from the band’s “The Long Goodbye” tour in support of their then-new album InFinite. 

At a little more than an hour, the show’s set list seems to have been designed to squeeze into a finite broadcast window, and it offers four tracks from InFinite, including the incendiary show-opener “Time For Bedlam” and the menacing “Birds of Prey.” A pair of songs each from Machine Head and In Rock – notably “Smoke On the Water,” “Lazy,” and the mega-kiloton explosion that is “Bloodsucker” – provided radio listeners the classic hits they crave, while deeper catalog cuts like the title tracks from 1984’s Perfect Strangers and 1971’s Fireball provide the hardcore faithful with their concert memories. The show’s encore includes Purple’s first stateside hit single, a rockin’ cover of Joe South’s “Hush,” and their first U.K. hit, the non-album track “Black Night.” 

The sound quality of the show is pretty good overall, with decent separation of instruments. Gillan’s vocals sound clear, even if his between-song comments are sometimes a bit muddy. Airey’s keyboards seem to ride high in the mix and Morse displays his six-string skills with both soaring fretboard runs and more nuanced jazzy flourishes. Glover’s bass lines are often lost in the din but, at times, as on “Uncommon Man,” his striking rhythmic sense provides a foundation for the performance.   

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ARTIST: Deep Purple

VENUE: Auditorium Stavinski, Montreux Switzerland; 07/04/18

SOURCE: audience tape

SET LIST: Intro /Highway Star /Pictures of Home /Bloodsucker /Strange Kind of Woman /Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming /Uncommon Man /Lazy /Time For Bedlam /Birds of Prey /The Surprising /Perfect Strangers /Space Truckin’ /Smoke On the Water /Hush /Black Night

COMMENTS:  Another fine concert from Deep Purple’s “The Long Goodbye” tour, this one performed in their familiar haunt of Montreux, Switzerland for the 2018 Montreux Jazz Festival. Like most shows along this tour, the band hits the stage to the sounds of Holst’s “Mars, the Bringer of War,” an unlikely but appropriate classical passage with which to introduce the still-rockin’ noise-makers. The concert’s set-list has been expanded by several songs from the previously-mentioned 2017 London how, drawing additional material from the band’s smash Top Ten U.S. breakthrough, 1972’s Machine Head. Curiously, the show features only three songs from their then-current release InFinite, replacing one with a deep cut from 1996’s Purpendicular.  

Opening with the adrenaline-fueled, red-lined “Highway Star” from that album, the band shows that they’re in Switzerland to rock, and the following take of Machine Head’s “Pictures of Home” pulls no punches, with Ian Gillan’s banshee vocals, Steve Morse’s tortured guitar licks, and Don Airey’s flamboyant keyboard runs driven forward by Ian Paice’s unrelenting drumbeats and Roger Glover’s whiplash bass lines. It’s a heady performance, to be sure, of one of the band’s more obscure tracks. The aforementioned Purpendicular track, “Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming,” is provided a gorgeous guitar intro by Morse before Gillan’s soft vocals lull the listener into an almost hypnotic trance that is broken by the song’s up-tempo chorus and Morse’s high-flying solo. 

Otherwise, the performances of songs like “Bloodsucker,” “Birds of Prey,” and “Lazy” don’t differ a heck of a lot from the London performance, with a couple of notable exceptions. They list a “keyboard solo” on the Setlist.FM website that is really just an extended intro to “Perfect Strangers.” The encore performance of “Hush” incorporates a bit of “Green Onions” by Booker T. & the M.G.’s with Airey jamming on his keyboards and Glover spanking his bass like the legendary Donald “Duck” Dunn. The song rolls into an extended bass solo before finishing up with “Black Night.” Overall sound quality for the show is nowhere near the FM broadcast sound of the London concert, with muddier vocals and not much in the way of mid-range dynamics. There’s a bit of hollow “cavern” feel to the performances, but if you turn it up loud enough, it’s quite an enjoyable concert! 

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ARTIST: Deep Purple

VENUE: The Orpheum Theatre, Boston Massachusetts; 10/05/19 

SOURCE: audience tape

SET LIST: Intro /Highway Star /Pictures of Home /Bloodsucker /Demon’s Eye /Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming /Uncommon Man /Lazy /Time For Bedlam /Perfect Strangers /Space Truckin’ /Smoke On the Water /Hush /Black Night

COMMENTS:  The third entry in our Deep Purple bingethon, it’s now late 2019 and the band is still flogging their eternal “The Long Goodbye” tour with a stop at the Orpheum Theatre in Boston, one of 32 U.S. shows the band performed that year. The setlist doesn’t vary much from a year previous, still relying heavily on Machine Head and In Rock for the bulk of the material. Only a single song (the delightfully bombastic “Time For Bedlam”) makes the cut from 2017’s InFinite LP which, now two years in the rearview mirror, has mostly been abandoned in favor of “classic” Purple jams.

Show-opener “Highway Star” provides the immediate amphetamine rush that fans demand, with a slightly-different instrumental introduction quickly giving way to Ian Gillan’s machine-gun vox and Ian Paice’s jet-propulsion drumbeats. Don Airey’s keyboards slash and burn their way throughout the performance the way that Jon Lord’s once did (R.I.P. July 2012), and Steve Morse’s guitar screams while Roger Glover’s bass throbs like a toothache. The band has seemingly chosen a different track from 1971’s Fireball for each change of the season, and for this 2019 tour they’ve resurrected “Demon’s Eye,” a malevolent, dark-hued song with a fantastic vocal performance from Gillan, backed by a deliberately-paced rhythmic soundtrack with shards of Morse’s fretwork puncturing the mix.

The “keyboard solo” for this performance seques into “Lazy,” with Airey incorporating enough notes from Boston’s “More Than A Feeling” for the audience to recognize. They flavor their encore performance of “Hush” with a bit ‘o the Allman Brothers Band’s “Hot ‘Lanta” before roaring full-tilt into the Joe South cover while “Black Night” is given an extended performance with some instrumental jamming and scraps of melody from other songs interplayed. Only a couple songs shorter than the 2018 Montreux Jazz Festival performance, and with essentially the same set list, but with a notch better sound quality, I’d give the nod to this Boston show above Montreux for the casual Deep Purple fan (the rabid fan will search online for all three performances). 

With the band sidelined from touring in support of the recently-released Whoosh! album by the Covid virus clampdown, it’s unlikely that we’ll hear much (if anything) from Deep Purple this year, which is a shame as the new album is every bit as good as just about anything the band has ever recorded and several songs would take flight on stage. As these three shows display, however, recent Purple performances capture a still-invigorated band performing a mix of exciting new material and re-imagined classic songs. 

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