London, December 2015

It’s a while since we’ve made the trek to London, but as this was the only show we decided to make an effort.  Finding the venue wasn’t too hard and as the drive down was done in good time despite the inclement weather up North we nipped in to the hotel to dump our gear and then set off for the hall. We got there around 3.00pm so decided to park up near the entrance and see what was happening.  Half the fun these days of going to shows is meeting up with other fans and we passed the time chatting and getting the layout of the place.
Round about four thirty we saw Roger and Ian Gillan arrive, and they greeted a few old friends. Ian came by to say hello and we had a quick word with Roger, who had brought his wife and two kids along to enjoy the evening (the youngest certainly has a look of him in his youth!).
Ian said his wife had gone on ahead to their villa in Portugal and he would be joining her after the show. When Ann asked him about the 2016 tour dates he knew nothing about them, but suggested this wasn’t unusual!
Inside we met up with Tim who had travelled down from Hull and Tonny who had made an even longer journey up from Plymouth. Eventually the house lights went down to reveal a brightly lit stage and after a little while Roger Glover sort of ambled on stage to pick up a sunburst Fender bass. We hadn’t expected a support act, and there seemed to be some confusion over what key their first number was in, but after they’d sorted this out the guitarist came to the mic and asked us to put our hands together for … The Madisons.

l-r Roger, Harvey and Tony. The Madisons

Sat in our corner we all sort of blinked, were we really seeing Roger’s first band live? They did team up about five years ago for a get-together according to Roger so despite the lack of rehearsal tonight (6/- admission guys) they romped through a couple of rock and roll standards (My Baby and Put On Your Red Dress’) with ease and the room responded with applause.  Harvey Shield on drums also handled the vocals and has clearly kept in trim – he lives in America these days, and has even done some acting for US TV.  Tony Barham kept the lead guitar going and seemed as amazed as we all were at what was going on.  As Deep Purple historians know, The Madisons were Roger’s first semi-pro group formed while he was still at school and led on to his first professional outfit.

Episode Six reunion, December 2015

After two songs there was a short break, before two more singers found their way on stage, Ian Gillan and Sheila Carter.  It was time for the main event, Episode Six.  While Roger had known about the evening for a while, Ian only realised it was happening the day before, and so rescheduled to be able to get along. Despite this last minuteness, as they launched into I Hear Trumpets Blow he managed to sing the words without a crib sheet, helped out by Sheila. At other times he had to busk it and help on the chorus, and at the end said a few heartfelt words to both the rest of the band and the audience. Considering he’d come off the back of a long Deep Purple tour and of course the big O2 Arena show two night before, it was good of him to juggle his schedule and his appearance was appreciated by everyone.
After a version of Morning Dew based on their single interpretation Ian left the stage and Roger then did Stand By Me with his daughter Gillian, who seems a natural.
We then had chance to see a guy called Pete Reglar. Pete was in at the very start of the Lightnings, working with Sheila and the others under the name Pete Jason and Shandy.  He gamely tackled one of their stage faves, That’ll Be The Day. Incredibly Pete also brought along his old note book into which he kept details of all the songs they did live, and the dates of their shows, and who sang what.
It was now time for a proper break.

Back row Tony, Harvey, Sheila and Ian. Front row Roger and John.

The reason for the event was to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Episode Six signing their original Pye recording contract, and their first Pye recording session (the single came out early in 1966). It’s not the first time they have met up like this, some will recall photos of an earlier reunion in Kerrang, but being such an important anniversary they decided to make this a bit special, hiring a hall and proper gear. Once that was arranged, they made efforts to track down as many musicians and people connected with the band as they could.
My invite came via the Episode Six CDs we helped collate and put together almost twenty years ago, and which got played to death during the evening.  I have kept in touch with Sheila ever since and offered to provide an intermission slide show, which provided a lot of amusement for the audience. It was funny to see Ian’s reaction to a couple of particularly fey shots of him wearing just an open waistcoat and beads.  We’d put the show together from our archives, with Tonny also supplying some interesting new images from a fans collection he picked up not long ago.

The audience watch the intermission entertainment

There was even a bit of film; Tony (he was known as Tony Lander while in the band) had managed to dig out the super 8mm silent film from the old Deep Purple family tree show, and we also had the Beat Beat Beat footage courtesy of Dave Browne.  Although these are familiar to some fans, many in the audience were watching them for the first time. The band’s second guitarist Graham Carter (Sheila’s brother) now lives in America and couldn’t get across, but using skype he was able to see the hall and chat with the rest of the band.
Also there and enjoying it all was the band’s second drummer, John Kerrison. Although he couldn’t take part, he was pleased to be part of the occasion and it was good to meet up with him after so many years corresponding by email.

The grand finale (pic Tonny Steenhagen)

Tonny had the bright idea of getting all the band musicians together for an impromptu photo call and Sheila rounded everyone up.  It was really funny to see what was a quite laid back and relaxed event suddenly turn into a mad frenzy of cameras, iPads and mobile phones as dozens of people made sure they got a souvenir image.
We made sure to spend some time going through all the photos and memorabilia which Sheila had collated, and admiring some wall panels full of new shots she has unearthed. We did discuss the idea of a limited production book of some sort in the new year.
Amazingly Sheila had managed to dig out her original WEM Telstar electric organ which was positioned in pride of place in front of the stage. She told me years ago that it was somewhere in the back of her garage, so it was great to see it has survived. Whether it can be got back to working condition is something we’ll have to see.
Eventually, despite the excellent running buffet, our energy levels began to flag. I’d been up until midnight the previous evening trying to sort glitches in the slide show (the software crashed after two hours processing!) and our friend Tim needed to get his transport connection, so we made our farewells. The musicians were made of stronger stuff and were persuaded back up for another short set towards the end of the evening. Tonny had also stayed put and can fill us in on the close of the evening; “Harvey turned ceremony master of sorts and various permutations of the musicians ended up running through some songs like Red House, sung by Gillian, Summertime by a young Claudia, Great Balls of Fire sung by Harvey, Roger singing ‘Too Much Monkey Business’, etc. They did about another half an hour.”
We would like to say a big thanks to Sheila and Tony for inviting us, and hello to Tom Joseph and Tonny Steenhagen for braving public transport to get there.  The band have decided to open their own Facebook page to mark the occasion and act as a sort of gathering place for themselves and fans. This can be found here. The idea is to add a list of tour dates and material from their archives, and a new CD collection has also been set in motion about which more anon. Once the slide show from the event has had an audio track added it will also be uploaded to view.
Some people attending did take video enabled kit and I’m sure some of this will end up on the web (if it hasn’t already!). [I apologise that this has taken me a while to post but I stayed on in London for a couple of days of meetings (about which more anon) and when I got back had to clear a very full in-tray then get my print exhibition finished and hung at a local gallery…]

Hip boots.

SET SPOILER!  Though not very much. Deep Purple’s current set was the subject of some discussion recently, and they have changed things around a little for the current batch of dates, which of course concludes in London in a couple of weeks time at the O2.  The set list for the Atlas Arena in Lodz, Poland on October 25th is fairly typical:

Après Vous / Demon’s Eye / Hard Lovin’ Man / Strange Kind of Woman / Vincent Price / new instrumental / Uncommon Man / The Well-Dressed Guitar / The Mule / Get On Hip Boots (new) / Silver Tongue / Hell to Pay / Keyboard Solo / The Battle Rages On / Space Truckin’ / Smoke on the Water. Encore Hush  / Black Night.

It still included four from Now What in the show although the end of the set looks very familiar.  We’re not sure what the new song Got My Hip Boots On (the title seems to be fluid) is about and even Ian Gillan seems a bit unsure, judging from the way he keeps focused on the crib sheet throughout!  After some ropey footage of this appeared on the web the song was taken out, though I’m not sure it would have much impact on album sales – this was after all the way much of Machine Head was developed. It sounds a little pedestrian so far but has room to develop. Amazingly Contact Lost has finally been shaken off and was replaced by a new piece of Steve’s. I can’t recall how many years this one has been there.
Mary Long, Pictures of Home and Wring That Neck were included at a couple of the shows in Italy.  There was even a chunk of the old Gillan showstopper Brazos included before the newie, Got My Hip Boots On at one gig.
The changes inspired DPAS stalwart Mark Maddock to utilise his spreadsheet skills and prepare a list of the songs performed, where and when. The info comes from various sources, and we’ve not been able to verify the sets 100% so if you have any corrections let us know. I’ve converted this to a graphic which you can check out (in case the spreadsheet format wouldn’t work for everyone). It’s often interesting to see stats done like this, and you get an idea of how things have changed during the tour. I’ll see if we can get Mark to do more like it! Click on the image to bring up a large easier to view version. He was inspired by the work carried out by Neil Young fans at the Sugar Mountain site.

Birthday boy

Ian Gillan marks a milestone birthday today!  I must confess we don’t normally worry too much about mentioning these things on DTB, but 70 is a bit special.  I was playing The Sun Goes Down to some friends only last night (the door was locked, they couldn’t escape) and thinking what a great job he did on it, and how you can still rediscover stand-outs like that in the catalogue which make it all worthwhile.  So for that, and many other gems stretching back fifty years to I Can See Through You (and whatever comes next), cheers.  Now, about that quid I loaned you backstage at Bradford in 91 when you threatened to rip my spine out unless I coughed up…

Here’s one somebody made earlier. Photo : Roger Glover

Uneasy Rider – The Talented Mr Blackmore

Blackmore discusses his career with a cameraman….

A curiously titled new documentary (neither of the puns really relate to his career) about Mr. B, due for release as a home video at the end of October, which has been in the works for a while.  With a running time of over two hours, this one has for the first time the full co-operation of Ritchie himself for once, and the documentary has been produced by Eagle Rock who have a good track record in this area (they backed the excellent Making Of Classic Album series.)  It is also a good move given his aim of playing some rock shows next year to remind people what he was all about.  There are twenty year olds around today who have never seen him live in anything but Blackmore’s Night.
A list of participants includes four former member of Deep Purple, albeit only Roger Glover from the current line-up, plus some names you might expect as well as a few you wonder about – I hadn’t got Gene Simmons down as a massive Blackmore fan but you never know!  It is noticeable that not a single person from his pre-Purple years is listed which seems a shame.  Please don’t tell me they’re not including the fab footage of Ritchie wiggling with The Outlaws up on scaffolding…
Anyhow, if you can still find the music section of your local DVD shop, it could be worth a look.  Eagle are very quick to get their titles onto TV so that’s an alternative if you can’t make your mind up.

Interviewed for the documentary are: Ritchie Blackmore, Candice Night, David Coverdale, Roger Glover, Glenn Hughes, Graham Bonnet, Joe Lynn Turner, Steve Lukather, Brian May, Joe Satriani, Gene Simmons, Steve Vai, Lars Ulrich, Phil Collen, Ian Anderson, Malcolm Dome, Martin Birch, Chris Welch, Chris Charlesworth, Jim Ladd, Pat Regan.

Throwback Thursday

One of the reasons we got advance news on the NBC show (first mentioned below) was that the cameraman, Eric Eisenstein, is a big Deep Purple fan and Darker Than Blue follower. We met Eric last year when he was over watching his lad, touring with a great group called Man Overboard (and packing them in at The Cockpit in Leeds).  Needless to say getting to film Purple was a great gig for Eric, who says he got to meet all the band between the rehearsal and the live performance.
He sent us some great photos, which include this shot of them rehearsing (the stage was set up in the street outside the studio rather than have the kit blow everything inside NBC!), and one of himself in action during the show. Eric is the guy in the checked shirt on the far right filming Steve in the clip. Not a bad rendition either, Ian coping well with the ungodly hour. By the numbers sure but it did exactly what NBC wanted I suspect. Great shots of Paice’s kit in places too, gives an idea of how massive it all is.  Amazing to watch the folk in the background walking past on their way to work…

A couple of people have asked about Steve’s black support strap on his wrist, which apparently is to counter touches of arthritis.  He has been sporting this off and on since last year. As someone says, it doesn’t seem to slow him up any! Mucho thanks to Eric.

Purple new album / tour spoiler

Deep Purple have earmarked February 2016 to record a new studio album, and will again use Bob Ezrin to produce. His input is generally regarded as having a big part of the success of Now What.  It will be done in America, which they like as they can get a decent size reasonably priced studio space to set up in and jam.
In the meantime there is a set spoiler from the band’s latest American jaunt below, so look away now if you’ve got tickets and DON’T want to know!  Although I suppose most of us would be able to make a reasonably good guess these days. Four songs from Now What still in the set, which is otherwise classic era heavy (and Perfect Strangers the sole representative of over twenty five years of studio output.)
Thanks to Mark Maddock

Deep Purple July 14th – Lewiston, Artpark Amphitheater, New York

Highway Star / Aprés Vous / Hard Lovin’ Man / Strange Kind of Woman / Vincent Price / Contact Lost + Uncommon Man + Well Dressed Guitar / The Mule / Lazy / Hell to Pay / Keyboard Solo + Perfect Strangers / Space Truckin’ / Smoke on the Water – Encore – Hush / Black Night

Power trio is back

Glenn Hughes has sprung a decent looking live tour on the UK, back to a power-trio as well with Doug Aldrich and Pontus Engborg.  Just writing that and I can feel the bass slamming into me.
Glenn is promising to cover all of his career paths (which could mean a long night these days), indeed the man himself suggests, this is going to be epic. Sorry, E P I C.
Were fancying the Holmfirth gig so we can get an early tea at the Wrinkled Stocking cafe first, from the money we saved not bothering to go to the Slash support shows late last year.  Thanks to Tom, Tim and Classic Rock Revisited dot com for the news.

OCTOBER
Mon 19 Norwich – Waterfront
Tue 20 Newcastle- Tyne Theatre
Thu 22 Belfast – Limelight
Fri 23 Glasgow – The Garage
Sun 25 Holmfirth – Picturedrome
Mon 26 Bilston – Robin 2
Wed 28 York – Fibbers
Thu 29 Manchester – Club Academy

NOVEMBER
Sun 01 London – Electric Ballroom

The Glimmer Twins

Lots of pics zooming around the web to confirm Glenn Hughes stepped up to the mic at the Whitesnake Purple Tour show in Beverley Hills this week.  He reportedly sang on at least two of the Purple tracks.  Kind of makes you wonder why they didn’t get it together so the pair could have done the Purple songs in a second half of the set type scenario, which would have been a bit special!  Even the suburst lens flare looks like Mk 3 days…

Remembering Jon

A blue plaque marking Jon Lord’s first home has been placed on Number 120 Averil Road, Leicester. The story has been reported in the local paper, the Leicester Mercury, from which we quote (you can see more pictures by Will Johnston and the full story in their site.)
His family didn’t want a big event, so a small group including his widow Vicky, his two daughters, Sara and Amy, grandson Reggie, his brother Steve and some old friends and neighbours who knew Jon, marked the event on June 7th. Jon spent the first 20 years of his life in the house. He went to Humberstone Junior School and Wyggeston Boys School, where he passed five O-levels and two A-levels. And it was here his dad Reg, a factory worker, would play the saxophone, instilling a love of music in his elder son and his brother Steve which would last a lifetime. “He sent us both for piano lessons,” says Steve. “But it only really worked with Jon. I’m very proud that he is being recognised by his home city.”
A young Jon was regularly dragged along to classical and jazz concerts at De Montfort Hall in Leicester. But it was a Buddy Holly show in 1958 which changed everything. “That gig turned my head around,” he told the Leicester Mercury a few years ago. “It was the birth of rock and roll. I was one of the lucky ones to be in on it.”
Lord had piano lessons every week from a classical pianist in Leicester who lived in University Road. “I’d get a bus into town and walk across Victoria Park to his house. He was a troubled man but a musical genius,” Lord said. “He pushed me constantly and made me the player I am, there’s no doubt about it.”
A couple of his childhood friends, now in their seventies, were also invited. Jack Wootton, 73, grew up with Jon and was there to see the blue plaque unveiled. “Jon was a lovely lad,” he said. “I remember going to call for him one evening, we were playing cricket down the field, and he said ‘I can’t come, Jack – I’ve got piano lessons’. “‘Aw, don’t bother with that’, I remember saying. ‘Come and play cricket with us’.”
Bryan Wood, 76, was raised in Averil Road and still lives there. “I used to play with him all the time – we played football, cricket, in the brook under the bridge. I lost count of how many times we were chased off by the local bobby. “I remember, as kids, we would hammer the piano my mum had in the old front room. I didn’t know what I was doing – but Jon did.”
The house Jon grew up in now belongs to the Dhillon family. Daughter Simran, 21, had no idea about the house’s history. “We searched for Jon Lord on the internet and we could see what a good musician he was and how well-known and well-loved he was, too. We like the plaque on the house. It feels special and we feel very proud to live here.”
Some fans will want to visit to have a look, and I’m sure if they do they will respect the fact that this is a private house.
Thanks to local journalist Lee Marlow, who interviewed Jon at length some years ago, and has been pushing for this recognition for Jon for a long time, and to Tim Summers.

Bolin supports Purple

Deep Purple have added another date to the US tour (and given the gaps in this, I expect more may follow), and will be playing the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Sioux City, Iowa on Friday August 7 with Black Oak Arkansas (including Johnnie Bolin) opening for them. The day before (Thursday Aug 6th) there is a free admission Tommy Bolin Fan Jam with Kenny Passarelli, Alphonse Mouzon, Johnnie Bolin, Russell Bizzett, Bobby Berge and more at the Toddie Tap. On the Saturday (Aug 8th) it is the Bolin Fest, 10 bands for $10.00. Sounds like an opportunity for a trans Atlantic mini-break!  Thanks to Trace Keane for the details.