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Older Tours...
Tours 2005
Scandinavia plus
North America summer

Tours 2004
UK 2004
Russia & Ukraine
North America 2
Europe
Down Under
Asia
North America 1

Tours 2003
Europe
South America & Mexico
Ripening Tour part 2
Ripening Tour part 1

Tours 2002
Andrew Summerhayes' 31 years of DP
Solo shows: Paice, Glover, Lord
UK (rescheduled) + CH, Dubai, Greece
Germany
USA, part 2
USA, part 1
Asia
Russia, Ukraine & The Baltics
Ireland & UK

Tours 2001
Paice and York
Europe
North America
Australia, Japan, India

Concerto Tour 1999-2000
South America & Europe
Royal Albert Hall 1999

A.Band.On.Tour 1998-2000
1 - Europe-1 98
2 - USA 98
2a - Editor's Tour Special
3 - UK & Europe-2 98
4 - South America, Australia, Asia 99
5 - Europe-3 99
6 - Japan, Finland, Greece, etc 2000

Purpendicular Tours 1996-1997
UK, Europe-1 96
Europe-2 96
Europe-3, Japan 96
North America 96
South America 97
Europe-4 & Canada 97
House of Blues, USA 97-98
Ian Paice clinics UK 98

Much older tours...
1968-1995

From: Fedor de Lange 
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1995 15:52:26 GMT

Well, what can I say? How happy I was/am, when I found a tape of the forth- coming Deep Purple album in my mailbox last saturday?! At last, snail mail is good for something! ;-)

Let me please try to tell a little bit about the album, -correction- tape.

To begin with, it's fantastic, and a great joy to listen to. so therefor, maybe I may take this opportunity to congratulate our Purple am dp-ers Roger and Jon. It's the second album with another guitarplayer than Ritchie, and I thought that it might be difficult to judge which album will make a greater change in the overall Purple-sound; "Come taste the band" compared to "Stormbringer", or "Purpendicular" compared to "The Battle..."....

Stathis already summed up the songtitles, now I tried to clock the lenghts of the songs. Note: these are very rough timings, -done with a stopwatch- and they run from the first note till where I didn't hear the fade-outs anymore, so without the usual 'silence-seconds' between every song on the cd...:

 1. Vavoom: Ted the Mechanic        04:09
 2. Loosen my Strings               05:51
 3. Soon Forgotten                  04:44
 4. Sometimes I feel like Screaming 07:20
 5. Cascades: I'm not your Lover    04:36
 6. The Aviator                     04:15
 7. Rosa's Cantina                  05:10
 8. A Castle full of Rascals        05:08
 9. A Touch Away                    04:35
10. Hey Cisco                       05:50
11. Somebody Stole my Guitar        04:08
12. The Purpendicular               04:46
 

VAVOOM: TED THE MECHANIC Mechanic Morse intro, which sounds like the fingertapping Eddie van Halen used on the intro of "Mean Streets" on Fair Warning. Important role for Paicey and Roger Glover in this song. (Not only this, but they're very evident during the album ) Gillan is rappin' his ass off. Later on, a second vocal is added which sounds nice.

LOOSEN MY STRINGS Nice intro by Jon, but it's the bass-line that hits you. I think what Roger does is called 'hammer-ons"(?) Anyway, he manages to create a melocholic feel. When Gillan starts singing the chorus, I almost turn too emotional....this is a great, sensitive song...certainly one of my favourites on the album. After some fine playing by Jon, Steve's weeping guitar fades the song out.

SOON FORGOTTEN Well, I guess not. This one most of us already knew of the Florida tapes. The harmonics played by Steve sound a bit "spooky" to me, I mean that melody...it could be regarded as a potential soundtrack for Nightmare on Elmstreet #58 :-) Great role for Jon Lord...WOW! What a playing! On certain moments, it's like the organwork is ripped off of the In Rock demos or something! Gillan voice is doubled at some point in the song, which could very well be himself...or... Roger??...;-)

SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE SCREAMING The longest track of the album. Nice acoustic guitar-intro. Sounds very radio- friendly. it's a kinda epos that certainly needs some more playing, before you become aware of the intenseness of it. The clean guitar sound keeps stuck in my head...

CASCADES: I'M NOT YOUR LOVER During the intro, I tought, this must be the Speed King of the nineties!! The organ-intro, with Gilans voice-over, reminds you of some curch-scene. Great fun to listen to this track. It's one of the heavier tracks on the album. Lord is playing a fine solo in the middle, and when it get's doubled with guitar later on, Morse takes over.

THE AVIATOR Starts with some rolls by Paicey. Very different. Hard to imagine this would have been on a Purple record in Ritchie's days.

"I'm tired of the news,
I'm tired of the weather,
tired of the same thing everyday...."
It's in the style of some Paul Simon songs. (No Offend!!), sounds great to me tough, and could be a nice thing to perform live.

ROSA'S CANTINA This time, it's Roger who deserves the intro credits. (Must been said that both Jon and Roger and Paice are superb on this album). The bass sounds a bit like like the opening notes of "Hush". It's a kinda "dark-blues" song, with typical Lord playing. The mouthorgan makes it complete.

"....some would call it suicide
I would call it paradise
.... some would call it hell on earth.."

It's an example of the role for Gillan on this album. It's much more subtile, more softly to. The famous screaming thing isn't used that often. He does it all well.

A CASTLE FULL OF RASCALS Another heavier track. Who's that 2nd voice ;-) Some unexpected changes make this a pretty unpredictable song. Maybe that's way I can't come up with the melody, as I'm typing this review, as I CAN come up with all the other tunes!

A TOUCH AWAY More in the style of "The Aviator". Altough this track has some great guitar- solos, it quite comes and goes. I have to agree with Stathis, I think this is a little too 'poppy' for Deep Purple.

HEY CISCO Some Paicey-rolls again. very rythmic song, nice fills by Morse. I especially like the way the chorus is song. "...What they're doing to my friend?" The story goes about a guy with a sombrero, but I couldn't really find out much more yet...so maybe I'm totally wrong. ("..Hey Cisco mi amigo..") Lord plays a funny riff with one-hit notes, or how do you explain that. (Stathis?)

SOMEBODY STOLE MY GUITAR Great track. It's a sing-along track which all lolapalooza or donnington-freaks will know in a few months, so they can shout along when Purple is headlining those events.

I'm not quite sure which event it deals with (as far as the story isn't made up!)

"Somebody stole....my guitar!
Taken from the backseat
of my car!!"

Instead of the expected guitarsolo, Jon Lord starts with a riff, followed by some tasty guitarwork.

THE PURPENDICULAR Final track. My tape omits "Waltz", so I'm not sure what the definitive song- title will be. On the contrary to the Ft. Lauderdale version I heard, the song has a nice mouthorgan-intro, along to the main riff. Classic Purple track. Teamwork! Even the final baby of the boys is a beauty!

Gillan continues with something like:

"..when the time is right
but the shape is wrong
and you find youself...
were you don't belong

back to reality
back on the line
mmm...back into this
and you feel no pain.."

Well, is this called "sweet revenge"? ;-)

Overall opinion:

A fantastic Purple album this is. It's certainly better than "Slaves and Masters" and "The Battle Rages On". The overall sound is more back to the basic, altough it's much less bombastic. That is a positive point; the melody is what counts, the 'feel'. There are some tracks of which I doubt that would ever have made it on a record as long as Ritchie was in the band. You can smell the refounded freedom, and it appears to me the boys are ready to make a brand new start, of which "Purpendicular" is the first step. A maybe "negative" point for some people of this unique sounding Deep Purple, - which makes it hard to categorize- is that it might sound too "friendly" sometimes. An example is that apart from the acoustic intro of "The Aviator", and maybe "A Castle full of Rascals", no single track has a the guitarsound of Steve Morse as the opening notes. I'm not saying I miss some heavy guitar on the record, but Steve could have been a little -just a little!- more to the front. Let's not misinterpret; he's doing a fabulous job, he perfectly fits in Deep Purple. He's fast, shows some great feel, and has great melodic technique to makes this record good. Applouse for Roger, Ian, Jon and Ian too; guys, this is great! Judging from the tape, it's produced very crisp too. Because of the somewhat "differrent" "style" (compared to the other Purple records), it's hard to say wether this album contains some "Purple-classics". As far as 'the prototype of a classic Purple-track' excists, of course. Therefore,it might be more appropriate to speak of a classic album instead of classic tracks!

Cheers!

Fedor de Lange