Jon Lord • Celebrating (DVD – CD)

Celebrating Jon Lord

Edel Records / October 2014 multi format

This release is based around the Albert Hall Jon Lord memorial / tribute concert back in April. There is enough already on the site (check this page) to give people a good idea of the show, and the new set turns out to be somewhat more substantial than first suggested, forming quite an impressive cross platform series of releases with one or two niggles. There are two CD sets, one is a double (The Rock Legend) rounding up Deep Purple’s set and the other rock musicians, the second being a single disc containing the orchestrated performances of Jon’s solo material.  I think for me a triple of the lot would have worked, few people are not going to want the one without the other.

Video wise we have the usual double DVD or Blu Ray editions of the shows.  This amounts to something like three hours of msuic plus a bonus hour of out-takes and rehearsals, etc.

Lastly there is a sort of hybrid box set, which has the three CDs, the Blu Ray (but NOT the DVD) and two otherwise unique 7″ singles from the show.  Goodies include a page of the score, plus the t-shirt and prorgramme.  This is a little ill-thought out, as it means you need to buy the DVD separately if you don’t have Blu-Ray (and a lot of us still don’t!), and anyone who went probably already has the programme and shirt. But it does look smart in a 7″ square gold foil box rather than those overblown 12″ ones many releases now come in. Though good luck trying to get the crappy German censorship certificate sticker off that foil…

It would be churlish indeed though to be overly critical. The show is what it is, and for anyone who wants a souvenir of a live show, then pretty much everything seems to be here (something other labels might learn from). In terms of presentation it is clearly a very good looking release indeed, all royalties from this release are being donated to the Jon Lord Fellowship, which will be awarded each year to fund projects that display exciting and innovative approaches to fighting pancreatic cancer.

All formats are available through DTB Online store although the box set is quite limited and stocks are already low.

The CDs have everything (in the correct order) except for some of the speeches I think (they’re almost if not entirely all on the DVD/Blu-ray version).  Very impressed with this – a wonderful reminder of a special evening.  The bonus documentary about the staging of the show (‘Two Worlds’) included on the DVD is quite marvellous (and somewhat emotional) – a lot of love for Jon here. Tim Summers