We mentioned Rainbow’s tour dates a few weeks ago; these have now been confirmed with just four shows in Europe for 2019. I guess this does mean there might be more in Russia or the Far East. Anyhow, the dates are on our 2019 diary page now. The flyer for the Finland gig is shown below.
There has been a lot of speculation online about Steve Morse’s future in the group this past few days, sparked by an interview he gave with an online site, Rock, Roots and Blues. The report was not especially well phrased and the writer did seem to suggest Steve was preparing to leave and had even suggested replacements! Such was the chatter that Steve felt he needed to clarify the situation the other day:
RRB: “So Steve, are you leaving Deep Purple after this tour is over? I was under the impression that you were saying that to me the other night.”
SM: ”Well, I guess I’m not the best communicator! I thought that this tour, billed as the long goodbye tour, which I did see on one of my shirts, would be the final Deep Purple tour, but now it might not be?
I want to be on stage playing with the guys for the final show whenever that is. I plan on playing until I can’t play anymore or can’t play well enough for my own standards given how many people pay to come out and hear us, but, given the ongoing progressive problems (osteoarthritis) in my wrists, the writing seems to be on the wall. I am learning a fourth style of playing so that I can continue to do what I love, but the music that we play with Deep Purple may not allow me to continue. I’ll know when it’s time. Deep Purple is planning to record another album soon and the plan is for me to be there with them.”
So the long farewell tour may be longer than perhaps was anticipated by some and we may get a new studio album before too long. I do find it amusing that Steve is getting his updates from the tour shirts, but let’s hope that he gets his wish and if he does decide to call it a day they handle it better than previous band departures. Quite a few people have commented on what Steve calls his ‘fourth way’ and feel it works really well within Purple, and I have to say the grungier harder edge certainly worked for me the last couple of times I’ve seen them.
Thanks to everyone who helped on this story!
HMV have issued a number of special edition vinyl represses this year again (you may recall the marble vinyl In Rock from last time) to mark the BBC supported National Album Day. The one which may be of interest is a coloured vinyl issue of Rainbow Rising in their shops now (not online). My thanks to Russ Berger for the heads up via Mark Maddock.
Warning. This post contains a link to the Daily Mail. Look away now if this upsets you.
Yes the scourge of, well, everything came up trumps with a detailed investigation/ rehash of a syndicated news item / cure for cancer (delete which is applicable) about the sad saga of Ian Gillan’s one time hotel which I raised here a couple of days ago, and Peter Cross sent me the full details. It seems the place has been empty for some time and has been left unloved and unheated for four years now. Nothing a good renovation cannot sort but if this was anywhere round here it would have been trashed by vandals by now. Sic transit gloria mundi as people once said while popping a silly hat on someone.
I was trying to find Ian Gillan‘s old hotel complex the other day as someone wanted to visit, and looking at the web map sites the guitar shaped swimming pool appears to be still in situ; not quite viewable from space but almost! But it seems the hotel itself might be struggling. It closed a couple of years ago, was reopened to offer deals for golfers using the near-by course, but has not been able to compete with online booking site discounting. There seems to be no operating website. Mike Galway says he saw some film of it on the BBC recently shot by someone who had sneaked inside (one of those empty building explorer types; I’m saying nothing). Not sure if he took his trunks or if there is water in the famous pool – it looks a bit green here. If anyone lives around that way let us know.
Looks like Ritchie Blackmore is going to give Rainbow another outing in 2019. Aleksey Kononow has just spotted this poster for a show in Germany in June, and other countries will be announced soon, including Spain we believe. They’re certainly getting their monies worth out of the old Rising artwork!
Don’t read if you don’t want to know! Thanks to people who have nodded me over the Glenn Hughes tour list (we’ve not been able to make this tour ourselves). Quite a good selection, although I might have expected one or two more Come Taste songs. As a tour it is what it is, I kind of prefer his regular solo shows when we get more of a mix and the Purple songs come as part of that, but maybe this makes more sense commercially. 1400 attended the show in Bristol according to our man on the gate with the clicker.
Stormbringer / Might Just Take Your Life / Sail Away / Gettin’ Tighter / You Keep on Moving / You Fool No One / High Ball Shooter (someone tells me this was just interpolated!) / You Fool No One (reprise) / Mistreated / Smoke on the Water / Georgia on My Mind. Encore: Highway Star / Burn
By my ready reckoner that’s five from Burn, two (or one and a few bars) from Stormbringer, two from Come Taste and two from Machine Head!
Pic of the decorated Orange amps and speakers by Jeff Breis. Glenn has just announced a second batch of shows for May next year, so they must have gone well:
Holmfirth Picturedrome – May 14th
Edinburgh Queens Hall – 15th
Birmingham O2 Institute – 17th
Norwich UEA – 18th
St Albans Arena – 20th
Salisbury City Hall – 21st
Liverpool O2 Academy – 23rd
Nottingham Rock City – 24th
With Glenn just a few days off landing in the UK, reports from America suggest he is doing a great set. Vince travelled miles and caught the show in Providence RI the other evening and sent us the pic:
Glenn in fine form despite this being almost the last gig of North America tour. It was a small crowd (200+) and they upgraded anyone sat in the balcony, but still he gave it his all. So good to hear some of the tunes. Keyboardist and guitar not bad, well worth the trip and physical strife. I was worried the Purple tunes would tax Glenn but it was like 1975.
He certainly has extended inbetween song chats – a Bolin tribute before Gettin’ Tighter and the fact he is a citizen of the US now, etc. Glenn did feet it here and there, it is a taxing setlist, but he pulled it off with breaks and did plenty of Purple inspired screams to our delight. Other venues seem sold out so Providence may be odd one that was poorly attended, but great audience. Vince Chong, Canada.
UK dates are on our Diary Page (scroll down!) but some venues are sold out so check first.
It was international talk like a pirate day last week, so this album fits right in. Just a DTB public service announcement really, as this is being touted around as an Italian collector’s release in a ‘unique octagonal sleeve’ (long with similar titles from other bands). And it is quite smart, albeit seemingly mixing Mk 1 and Mk 2 up. But it is 100% unofficial, with pirated studio tracks. It’s an easy way to lose £30 or so, unless of course you’re into this sort of thing!
Talking of vinyl, that dull compilation with the op-art cover issued earlier in the year has found itself into the current HMV vinyl sale, so will cost you only £29 now. But the large stocks of reduced albums do suggest that while the reissue vinyl bubble isn’t exactly bursting, some labels are way over producing as well as over-pricing. Hurry while stocks gather dust!
And having checked out the current colour vinyl reissues from Universal (trending last week in Leeds according to Tim Summers who took the snap below), they appear to have used someone suffering from colour blindness to co-ordinate this, as all the copies I’ve seen are red despite the cover blurb. The utterly useless idiots have LEFT THE TORN PRICE STICKER ON MACHINE HEAD AGAIN. EMI did this on their last reissue, having bought a copy of the album second hand but been too bone idle to digitally clean the sticker off.
Another Deep Purple connection severed with the news of Chas Hodges’ death. It has been interesting to read the details of his long career, and let’s face it it’s hard not to have enjoyed some of his hits with Chas and Dave which always bring a smile when they’re on the radio, and made him a household name. In the early days of delving into Deep Purple’s history, discovering The Outlaws and tracking down their singles was mandatory, mainly to hear what the fledgling guitar work of Ritchie Blackmore was like rather than Chas’s bass playing I must confess (though he was apparently one of the first in the UK to own an electric bass).
It was always a red letter day when we found a new picture of the four piece for the collection (that’s Chas on the right in this vintage shot, and Gillan drummer to be Mick Underwood in front of course). The famous clip of him and the band in Live It Up is worth a look if you’ve not seen it, Chas on a twelve string.
Chas would later join a more progressive rock / country outfit in 1970 called Heads Hands & Feet, who actually supported Deep Purple at some shows in the UK in early 1971. Roger wasn’t well one night, and Chas deputised as the show had already begun. He also turned up on that great all-star rock blues jam session Green Bullfrog the same year to cement his place in the Purple family tree.
The Guardian have done a good obituary and I can do worse than link to that.
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