Deep Purple started their official live archive series from the Steve Morse reunion era earlier this year. These will be sold as limited numbered CDs, coloured vinyl and digital downloads. The second release is a show from Rome (that’s in Italy, the press info helpfully points out) July 22 2013.
The first, “an explosive show from Australia”, was so explosive we missed it altogether (Simon was “otherwise engaged” at the time). Tim Summers tells us it was from Newcastle, Australia, March 14 2001, copied from the soundboard series box set (remastered, it doesn’t say how), so most collectors will already have this.
Anyway track listing for the Rome 2CD set is:
CD1 Intro / Fireball / Into The Fire / Hard Lovin’ Man / Vincent Price / Strange Kind Of Woman / Contact Lost / Guitar Solo / All The Time In The World / The Well-Dressed Guitar / The Mule / Bodyline / Lazy
CD 2 Above And Beyond / No One Came / Key Solo / Perfect Strangers / Space Truckin’ / Smoke On The Water / Hush / Bass Solo / Black Night
A chance to check out live versions of three not often heard songs and get in on the ground floor of this series. It’s out at the end of the week via earMusic. Some of the cuts have already been out on the Now What live tapes edition, but this is the full set.
They’re pressing 20,000 on CD so no need to panic buy. Indeed it’s hard to see what is limited about such a long run. The label have borrowed (closely, but without any sense of adventure) packaging ideas from Pearl Jam who have been doing this sort of limited release since 2000 (much to Steve Grover’s delight! An example is below). Basic cover info and tatty bootleg style graphics (FYI edel design dept: NEVER EVER compress the typewriter font, it always looks awful).
It’s hard to know the rationale behind the series, i.e. what dictates a set will end up in this collection, or will ALL live shows from now on get this treatment? Will they go for rarer graded shows which might not be soundboard quality but would interest fans?
Still at least they’ve half tried, even if it has taken them 30 years or so! Thanks to Stuart Hamilton for the news; Edel’s people couldn’t be bothered to even email over the press release.
darker than blue 
December 4, 2019 at 6:06 am |
How about they finish the previous live series?
Or release the Now-What Vol. 2 live tapes on CD.
Or release recent vinyl B-sides on CD, I’m talking about Above and Beyond 7″ and Out of Hand 10″.
December 3, 2019 at 9:31 pm |
Simon, any news on the ‘overseas live’ series that suddenly stopped after Long Beach 1976? Has it been abandoned? Thx.
January 17, 2020 at 4:11 pm |
I’ve no idea what will happen. I gather that most of the issues are sorted but as DPO no longer exist, and most of that series were poorly put together and badly mastered, I’m not in a mad hurry to see any more!
December 3, 2019 at 9:20 pm |
The most boring tour poster ever?
Stuart Hamilton
January 17, 2020 at 4:15 pm |
Ooo, that sounds like a challenge Stuart! I’m sure I have plenty of posters in the archive that would happily sit alongside it…