It looks like Glenn Hughes is preparing to do some of his Deep Purple tribute shows in the UK at last. The set is part of the Steelhouse Festival (in Ebbw Vale) in July. It’s a three-dayer, and Glenn is headlining on the Saturday night (28th July). We would imagine the other shows will be fitted in around this time, and look forward to catching one of these.
Touchingly the festival promoters have spoken about their first sight of the original band being via the California Jam video – on Betamax! “When we were growing up in Ebbw Vale, absorbing all the rock music we could, listening to records handed down by older siblings and saving up our own pennies for a Saturday afternoon binge at the local ‘Record Centre’, a game-changing piece of hi-tech entertainment hardware started to appear in houses all across the land – the video recorder had arrived and brought with it the possibility of seeing our heroes in glorious moving technicolour as well as hearing them. Our local video rental outlet had a copy of Deep Purple’s filmed appearance at Cal-Jam, 1974, a live concert so legendary and so exotic that it may as well have taken place on Mars. It proved to be a more popular rental in Ebbw Vale than ‘Friday the 13th’, ‘Any Which Way But Loose’ and ‘Jaws’…!”
Thanks to Tim Summers, Chris Hewlett
Tags: 2018, deep purple, glenn hughes
darker than blue 
February 18, 2018 at 2:28 am |
Saw the GH Deep Purple tribute in Auckland New Zealand last October. Glenn confessed his love for the audience about 50 times which was almost as painful as the drum solo. Worst thing was he announced the real Deep Purple were quitting at the end of 2017 and he was the only one who could carry on!
March 14, 2018 at 9:39 am |
He should be careful who he listens to for his news!
February 12, 2018 at 8:22 pm |
check out the amazing review of BCC concert in Classic Rock especially if you are a naysayer!
February 8, 2018 at 8:12 pm |
Ah; the wonderful California Jam… I will never forget the first time I witnessed Mistreated and You Fool No One… Jesus that band cooked, and boy could Ritchie play.
As unbelievable today as it was then.
If Glenn heads north I’ll be there :)
February 6, 2018 at 1:51 pm |
Echo a lot of that, I never saw Deep Purple in 68-76 period albeit by very early 80s had seen all the offshoot bands. Film of DP was not readily available (pre internet/Youtube) so all we really had was was the Cal-Jam which you could rent which I did occasionally from a rental place in Dundee, on Betamax too. The cost of buying the tape was about £40 at a time albums and tickets were a fraction of that so owning it was out of the question for me at that point. For many of us, visually, DP MK3 were the definitive article until MK2 reformed.
February 6, 2018 at 8:42 am |
Is he still doing his funky soul ad-libs? Never liked that!
February 6, 2018 at 8:26 am |
I too had the Cali Jam on Betamax. Got it as a Christmas present. It cost over £30. Thats probably about £250 in todays terms. I wonder what percentage RB claimed back then?
March 14, 2018 at 9:40 am |
It was scarily expensive, came in a little hard back book case too with a paper dust wrapper!