The only time I caught Deep Purple live was in Athens, April 2000. I had to google to confirm the date, and I came across the contemporary reviews in the press, which were great. Not how I remember it. I mean yes the band played well, but the venue was awful, completely unsuited to live concerts. A place, somewhere in the Olympic Complex, which looked like a low-ceilinged aircraft hangar or a huge warehouse. 10,000 fans were cramped inside, slowly boiling in that stuffy place which had almost no air condition. Outside it was around 20°C, but inside it was well over 35°C. At least one in every five spectators smoked, while the sound reverberated all over the place. So that experience is more vivid in my mind than how the band played. I do remember being thrilled with Jon Lord's solos and annoyed that Blackmore wasn't there. I had missed my chance to see Blackmore with Purple a few years before, when the Slave And Masters line-up visited Athens. It was a combination of perennial pennilessness and annoyance that Joe Lynn Turner had replaced Gillan as lead singer. I don't think anyone accepted Turner as a legitimate Purple member, his style was too AOR for classic Purple material. Now, of course, it stands out as a missed opportunity. I would love to listen to a professionally recorded concert from that tour, see what he brought to the game and how his presence affected the songs.
My eagerness to listen how present-day Purple play their classic songs was one of the reasons I picked up the special edition of their latest CD, containing a bonus live disc. Another was the expectation that this was to be their last album (the accompanying tour was named the "Long Goodbye Tour"). Think of it as a once-beloved TV series that has been going on for too long. You may have missed the last few seasons, but aren't you going to watch the last episode and learn how it all ends? This was just a misunderstanding, though. The latest word by Steve Morse is that they are planning to enter studio again in 2019 for a new record. I had stopped following Purple after Perfect Strangers, as I found what I heard from the next few albums unconvincing. Then, when Steve Morse replaced Blackmore on guitar, I gave Purpendicular a chance. It had gotten good reviews, and it wasn't a bad album, but it certainly didn't sound like Deep Purple. Imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when the opening "Time for Bedlam" instantly reminded me of the titular track from Perfect Strangers. Powerful hard rock with guitar and organ fills worthy of the absent Blackmore/Lord. Gillan is in fine voice throughout the album. Different from the 70's, more constrained and less shrieky. On "Hip Boots" he's bluesier, even reminds me of Elvis for the first verse. On "All I Got Is You" Gillan sounds almost nonchalant, but Morse and Airy are on fire. "One Night in Vegas" and "Get Me Outta Here" are O.K. as fillers go, but "The Surprising" provides the highlight of the album, a more complex composition with soft melodic and hard rocking parts, lyrical vocals and epic keyboards. "Johnny's Band" is a fun but comparatively pedestrian straight rocker, and "Birds of Prey" another throwback to the 70's hard rock. The album ends anti-climatically with an unnecessary cover of The Doors' "Roadhouse Blues". The album cover depicts an icebreaker forming the letters d and p on the ice, which are also arranged to resemble the infinity sign to symbolize the band's 50-year history.
Regarding the bonus CD (also available in standalone 3-LP vinyl form), it's a very decent live recording: excellent sound and tight performances, as can probably be expected for a lineup that has been playing together more than 15 years. It starts off with the bombastic "...Bedlam" and then straight to 3 classic Mark II hits with nice solos by Glover ("Fireball"), Morse and Airy ("Bloodsucker"). "Uncommon Man" from the previous album sits well among the classics, and features some shredding by Morse, whose playing is excellent throughout albeit not as flashy as Blackmore's. Don Airy, on the other hand, fills Jon Lord's boots with aplomb: just listen to him in "Lazy", it's difficult to tell them apart. Which in no way demeaning, he's not a copyist, just someone with a similar all-encompassing style and tremendous chops. Gillan is in remarkably good form for his age, especially if it's really an undoctored performance as stated on the cover. Doesn't hit the high notes like he used to, and his voice may have lost some power but it's still robust and never falters. After "Surprising" and "Birds Of Prey" from the new record, the band continue with the oldies: "Space Truckin'" has always been a live favorite, though it sounds awfully condensed at 5 minutes, as it used to routinely run for 20 minutes in concert. Actually no song surpasses the 8-minute mark, which which is very uncharacteristic of the old Purple who loved to jam and transform their songs onstage. Nowadays they're not so brash, more of a tight rock'n'roll ensemble than the unstoppable juggernaut of the 70's. Lastly, the obligatory crowd pleaser "Smoke On The Water" is followed by a couple groovier numbers with roots in the 60's, "Peter Gunn/Hush" and "Black Night". By seeing the 2000 lineup I had ticked the DP box and, as the experience was not too pleasant, I never again sought to see them in concert. Meanwhile, I had the chance to listen to the DP classics as performed by Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow in Germany, and the best songs by Mark III and IV by Coverdale's Whitesnake in Belgium. Glen Hughes is also currently touring playing DP material. I guess we're now at that point in time that no single band or musician can lay claim to the DP legacy. I've finally made my peace with the fact I'll never see any of the classic DP line-ups, so I can listen to the newest version (officially Mark VIII) with open ears, and I say this album proves them to be worthy successors to the original band. I now look forward to seeing them in concert.
**** for Time For Bedlam, The Surprising, Birds Of Prey
*** for Hip Boots, All I Got Is You, Get Me Outta Here, Johnny's Band, On Top Of The World,
** for One Night In Vegas, Roadhouse Blues
LIVE AT HELLFEST 2017 **** for Time For Bedlam, Lazy, Perfect Strangers, Smoke On The Water, Black Night
*** for Fireball, Bloodsucker, Strange Kind Of Woman, Uncommon Man, The Surprising, Birds Of Prey, Space Truckin’, Peter Gunn / Hush
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