UPDATE • The long promised poster of photographs from Deep Purple’s final show at Liverpool is at last ready. It’s changed a little from the first visual, so I’ll post the finished version here. A few techie problems with the original scans held it up for ages. It turned out to be a problem caused by some of the scanning options, so in the end I redid the lot and finally got the results I wanted.
All the shots were taken during that final performance at the Liverpool Empire Theatre by myself. This is a limited art print suitable for framing (subject to agreement from other members of your household!). It’s on the DTBOnline Store now.
darker than blue 
March 10, 2014 at 1:16 pm |
Please release this one as a remastered live album, this will be a glorious one. We are getting bored with the re-released of Made in Japan 1972.
March 11, 2014 at 9:13 am |
Not sure glorious is the right word John, but it would certainly be of considerable historical interest.
October 27, 2010 at 12:23 am |
To my mind Mk IV was easily the most interesting line-up in the somewhat tortured history of the band. The first album is probably still the sentimental favourite but oh for Come Taste! It is a ripper and you will enjoy it more if you have the opportunity to get into the maze of Tommy Bolin solo official recordings, side projects (Mouzon, Cobham, Moxy et al) and the wealth of Archives material. It is amazing and inspiring. You will get much more out of CTTB as the Band did restrict Tommy to a sort of sound/approach etc. So it was a limitation. I saw 3 Sydney concerts in a row, they were great. Now DP is just a tribute to 30-40 year old ‘classics’ (in the mind of IG) ignoring most of the interesting material! Forget what they think – they have no right. Enjoy the underrated Mk IV lineup instead! Cheers IAN from Australia.
October 25, 2010 at 2:47 pm |
Great poster by the way! Please make sure your brother goes through his slides properly…
October 25, 2010 at 10:59 am |
So can we assume there will be no more BRAND NEW titles from 70’stuff on Purple Records ? I’m geeting too old and in few years I will be deaf or death (I suppose we all will) anyway, so I would like to hear all the surviving archive recordings as soon as possible – at least for me….
Nice shots!
October 24, 2010 at 8:16 pm |
Simon, what do you mean “…as you couldn’t hear Jon on the CD”? I haven’t heard the CD, but I’ve read that Jon had left the stage just after several songs, is it correct? The poster really looks great!
October 25, 2010 at 6:12 pm |
I meant you could hardly hear Jon on many of the CTTB tracks. Jon stuck it out for the entire Liverpool show, but was hidden in the gloom most of the time.
October 23, 2010 at 3:49 am |
Heya Simon,
Must say I find it challenging to celebrate what was, as has been well scribed over the years, a rather sad and somewhat sombre affair. What I find funny is that the stage lighting in all the published photos of this concert funnily enough seems to reflect this… almost as if they had resigned to falling into the shadows before fate served its hand!
Is it possible to hit the brightness/saturation button a bit more in Photoshop and take some of the gloom out??
October 23, 2010 at 3:17 am |
Oh yeah I almost forgot, is the DP calendar going to be released in time for fans to actually use it?
Do not get me wrong, the DPAS has been THE prime mover of DP releases for years AND I BUY THEM ALL! I just wish restraint was used in announcing forthcoming releases as it makes fans like myself wondering how many years the wait will be. I say 9 months from being announced is more realistic.
October 23, 2010 at 3:12 am |
Nice one Heimdall! Don’t get me started… too late… where are the Burn candles.. Ritchie Blackmore photo book… RB interviews collection… DP MK I psychedelic book (or whatever it was called)… DP long beach 1971 archive release.. the MkIII box of all the final concerts for 1975 tour… the Smoke On The Water book… Nigel’s book (10 years or more and counting) all items that are are announced with good intensions which seem to have been forgotten. Why not wait to announce projects when release dates are imminent? These must be in the Alaskan pipeline!
October 25, 2010 at 6:22 pm |
Will try and do better in the future, at least on any projects which we control to any degree. A lot we do not. Nigel’s book is 13 years in the making by the way (I just found my first draft!). The Smoke book is due next year, and will be part of what we think will be a sort of 40th Anniversary theme based around the track, with all sorts tied in to the anniversary over 2011. More anon. The Mk 1 psych book is planned for next year too. Funding held this up as one or two of the photographers wanted paying up front which stretched cash-flow too far this year. As for future archive audio releases, this is now down to the band. I have submitted a long list, they haven’t bothered to reply. We all understand that all fans will buy the old stuff and new.
October 22, 2010 at 11:18 pm |
In 1976 I was 14 years old and Deep Purple were coming to my hometown Liverpool and I wanted to go, the trouble was I was still at school and parents wouldn’t let me go!! I’d got into Deep Purple with the previous year’s 24 Carat Purple comp and my cousin had Come Taste The Band, so I really wanted to go but alas it was not to be.
I’ve seen the band many times since and all off shoots; the infamous Rainbow gig at the Empire in 1977, Ritchie destroying guitar and Royal box, springs to mind. 30 odd years later relations with my parents remain good!
October 22, 2010 at 7:47 pm |
A bit of history there, great stuff
October 22, 2010 at 2:58 pm |
That’s a great poster… I want one of those on my living room wall (subject to girlfriend approval).
Shame about the Sonic Zoom cd’s… I was hoping for Liverpool ’76 as the bootleg I have is shocking (but still essential listening, in a perverse way!)
Paul Hackett
October 22, 2010 at 8:33 am |
Supercool. MIKE
October 22, 2010 at 2:00 am |
Wow. This is excellent. Lucky for me, I have a big music room all to myself, so the wife won’t mind.
October 22, 2010 at 10:09 am |
We’ve converted one of our spare bedrooms into a music room this year, but its got framed posters of Blondie (the original Private Stock promo poster, you know, the one with the backlit hair and…) plus signed pics of Cyndi Lauper and Sandie Shaw taking up what little wall space there is left.
October 28, 2010 at 5:19 pm
But what about YOUR posters, Simon?
October 21, 2010 at 11:57 pm |
Looks great, can’t wait! So how’s the Sonic Zoom Liverpool CD coming along?
October 22, 2010 at 10:12 am |
And here’s me hoping everyone had forgotten about this CD… Truth is the band don’t want any more archive releases out right now (it causes lost sales of their new album apparently!), they’d rather give the money to the bootleggers. I’ve tried to point out the stupidity of this but it’s fallen on deaf ears. But in the meantime, I can’t really justify spending time (and likely money) on negotiating for unissued audio masters that will just sit on my shelf.
October 25, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Aha (sorry for ribbing you!). Your point makes perfect sense, the band’s does not.
What’s this new album they’re referring to? Yet another live album with Machine Head tracks dutifully played by the current line up, perchance? Market place competition between something like that and a Sonic Zoom Liverpool CD seems exceedingly unlikely.
October 21, 2010 at 4:14 pm |
Hmmm…amazing one! But…where’s Jon Lord? Thanks for the pic!
Purplesnake
October 22, 2010 at 10:17 am |
That’s easy Marcelo; as you couldn’t hear Jon on the CD, I mixed him out of the poster to show solidarity.
But in reality, I knew I was living on borrowed time at that gig, and having brazened it out to get down the front (everyone was sat down) with my camera and no photo pass, just shot what I could before the crowd suddenly stood up from the back of the stalls, and charged over the backs of the seats down to the front. I cleared off pronto but exited stalls right not left, so couldn’t snap Jon. However my brother might have taken a couple of shots, so I’m trying to get him to search through his old slides.
October 28, 2010 at 1:11 am
Really nice of you! And what a luck you had! You’ve made a great job for sure. Really wanna thank you for all the work you’ve been doing for the fans. All the best,
Marcelo