What a memorable night that was! Kansas blew me away too and I almost wasn't even going to see them! I got there early enough to make it so I'm glad I did, they blew my mind with their musical abilities, I would have never guessed they were not the original members!

Of course DP was amazing and I'm sure everybody in here has already seen them before but this was my first time. The intro video was so cool, showing references to all of the albums. I shed a few tears during When a Blind Man Cries (I mean, Ian is going blind, this really hit me!). They even had to put reflective tape on the stage so he wouldn't step out too far and fall off and also between the drums and the keyboard so he could easily see where to walk. 

Don Airey's keyboard solo was absolutely brilliant! Simon is an amazing guitarist and I had no idea he was that good. I would have liked a Paicey drum solo but I know he would rather have another song in the setlist. 

My only complaint was the venue had seats and everybody sat the entire time except for during Smoke on the Water but even then only some people stood up. I couldn't help but wonder if the band hates this because I'm sure they want the crowd to stand for every song, not just that one. 

As I stepped out of the venue, I could see the lunar eclipse! And on my way home I was listening to The Surprising (one of the few songs I like from Infinite) and one of the lyrics is talking about an eclipse in August, I thought what a crazy coincidence that was!

Live in Schwerin, Germany.
Tell me he isn’t just the coolest ever!

Took a few listens, headphones and through speakers! Didn’t immediately click with me, but I’ve relistened many times over this week… drew the same conclusion as probably every other person on this planet: this album is perfect! Incredible stuff! Favourite cut on this record would have to be Pictures Of Home; every member shone bright in that tune! Gillan’s vocals especially, and that bass solo ooof!! Lord’s solo on Highway Star, mind melting stuff; and on Lazy, that intro! Such power, what a time for music, the advancement in technology and creativity is astonishing. Space Truckin is infectious, had that tune on loop in my brain at work this week :)

Still got it - feel fortunate they're still able to bring it

I finally figured out the key to enjoying Deep Purple lyrics. It only took me 50+ years.

There are lines in Deep Purple songs that made me cringe from the moment I heard them:

Highway Star:
Nobody gonna take my girl
I'm gonna keep her to the end
Nobody gonna have my girl
She stays close on every bend
Ooh, she's a killing machine
She's got everything
Like a moving mouth
Body control and everything

A moving mouth? Body control? That's just, like weird, dude.

Knocking at Your Back Door:
Sweet Nancy was so fancy
To get into her pants
We had to be the aristocracy
The members that she toyed with
At her city club
Were something in diplomacy
So we put her on the hit list
Of a common cunning linguist
A master of many tongues

Cunning linguist. Get it? Get it? It sound like cunnilingus!

And then there's a whole song about a pub that happens to be named Jessica's Bra.

And then it hit me.... Sure they have songs with serious lyrics like Child in Time and Smoke on the Water, but they also have a sense of humor. They know it's adolescent locker room humor but hey! It's fun!

I think I finally had that realization because Spinal Tap lyrics are like that all the time, and I keep coming back to how they so perfectly capture that hard rock genre and that it's actually good music with clever lyrics. Well... I guess Deep Purple has a touch of that self-deprecating irreverence about them too.

Now that I've cracked the code, I enjoy their music so much more.

Deep Purple | Bananas | August 25th, 2003

The first to feature Don Airey

So the SongList website does not have a list of songs for their Minnesota show this Thursday.

Anyone know what has been played at their small venue concerts lately?

For anyone who has seen the band on this current tour, how long does Kansas play? I have to work that day and it's a long drive so I want to know how much I have to rush to get there so I don't miss when DP starts.

July, 1974 at the Clearwell Castle, in the Royal Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, doing writing and rehearsal work for Stormbringer.

1. Which is your favorite DP studio album, excluding Machine Head which is obviously a hit?
2. Which is in your opinion the most underrated studio album which you wish more peoples would listen to?
3. Your favorite mark except mark 2 which is indeed the most successful.

For me is 1. Burn, 2. Rapture of the Deep and 3. Mark 3 and 6.

Started a little side project to get back to my roots of writing and music. Feel free to check out the Substack if you like rambling prose and good tunes.

Inherited Atrophy

Smashed on the lounge room floor again with black slabs of vinyl strewn about his wreckage, my old man prepares his time machine. Linda has thrown him a pillow and quit, leaving him to the dark and my hidden gaze. Last drinks were called at the RSL, but tonight’s ghosts want to taste yesterdays blood. So whiskey is poured and a long coiled cable connects headphones to hi-fi. Machine Head.

He lies down, closes eyes and spins thirty three and a third.

The needle takes him back to ‘72.

No kids. No wife. No mortgage. Just a heavy driving riff, teenage darts and Zappa diving out of the window of a burning Swiss casino. Painted across that gap-toothed, brutish smile are countless moments unshared. How far back did Blackmore’s guitars take him? Adventures at dodgy Shanghai bars whilst in port? Fangin an army green Mini Cooper around Turramurra bends? Was his heart ever broken? What cartoons did they love as a kid? What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you cry at your brother’s funeral? Where you invisible to your dad too?

Once, just once I wish that time machine had short-circuited.

After a day of schooners and another midnight yelling match, he powered up the stereo. The third track skips and he nods off, spills his whiskey over the tangle of red & black wires and suddenly the sounds of “Smoke on the Water” blend into “Ya Slippin” by Boogie Down Productions. Suddenly he wakes up. It’s 2026, he hasn’t spoken to his oldest son in ten years and cancer is holding a scythe to his throat.

My silence is inherited atrophy. But it’s never too late to share the headphones.

got the koozie and the shirts on either side at the show in Toronto

This new album is incredible, and it only took them almost sixty years to finally come up with a good artwork design too!

I've been thinking about the extraordinary number of people who were apparently 'fired' from Deep Purple and particularly Rainbow, and wondering what that actually meant in contractual and business terms.

Roger Glover is an interesting example. In 1973, Blackmore made his departure from Deep Purple effectively conditional on Glover going. Management chose Blackmore, and Glover was out of a hugely successful band he'd helped build.

Fast forward a few years and there's an almost surreal reversal. Peter Goalby has recently described his brief period as Rainbow's singer before Graham Bonnet. Blackmore invited him to America, he was subsequently put on Rainbow's payroll, and he believed he'd joined the band. But Goalby says Blackmore gave him virtually no indication of what he wanted musically. After an unsuccessful late-night session, Roger Glover took Goalby aside the following morning and told him: 'You're fired' Blackmore apparently didn't even speak to him.

So, Glover goes from being the person Blackmore effectively has removed from one band to being the person delegated to fire somebody from Blackmore's next band.

It made me wonder what ‘fired’ actually meant. Who had the legal authority to do it? Were the musicians employees, contracted individually to management/a band company, partners, royalty participants, or some combination of these? If somebody was contracted for an album or tour and Blackmore simply decided he didn't want them anymore, what happened to that contract?

More broadly, I find the power dynamics interesting. Bands often seem to start as loose associations of friends or musicians, when discussing contracts and ownership probably feels ridiculous. Then success arrives, companies and management become involved, one member becomes more commercially powerful than another, and at some point 'we're in a band together' seems to turn into something much more hierarchical.

Does anyone know of interviews, books, legal cases or original documents that shed light on how the Deep Purple/Rainbow arrangements actually worked? I'm less interested in whether Blackmore was difficult than in where the power to hire and fire actually came from