15 Comments to “Purple train to Hamburg”:

1. 1
   Adel Faragalla says:

   ‘No need to shout’ is a very weak song in my opinion but I guess they are brave to experiment.
   I guess they can play what they like but considering the short set list they could have channeled their energy with the right songs.
   They all look healthy so that very important.
   Peace ✌️

   June 25th, 2022 at 00:57
2. 2
   George Martin says:

   The main riff to “No need to shout” is a slower version of the Gillan song “Roller”. Just listen to both songs back to back and you will see what I mean. Yes it’s a little different but very similar. As soon as I heard it I thought where have I heard that before? This is just an observation, I like them both and I’m glad they play other songs live to mix it up a bit.

   June 25th, 2022 at 23:18
3. 3
   stoffer says:

   @1 agreed- weak song! only 33 seconds to go by, but sounds kinda slow….

   June 26th, 2022 at 10:12
4. 4
   Uwe Hornung says:

   Attempting something new is part of Purple’s charm even though I personally would not rank No Need To Shout as Sgt. Pepper-worthy in, uhum, compositional value.

   June 26th, 2022 at 17:15
5. 5
   Adel Faragalla says:

   George Martin @2
   I listened to the song ‘Roller’ as you mentioned, there a slight link but it also shows that DP Whoosh has a lot of Ian Gillan influence.
   Peace 👍

   June 26th, 2022 at 20:42
6. 6
   max says:

   No need to shout … well I like it. Pity they do not play more of the new stuff (of Whoosh that is, I’m not too convinced by the covers album and that medley is an all time low IMHO).

   June 27th, 2022 at 13:49
7. 7
   Attila says:

   NNTS is imho probably the worst piece on that album. Live, even worse. A strange choice, I think.

   June 27th, 2022 at 18:41
8. 8
   Uwe Hornung says:

   “DP Whoosh has a lot of Ian Gillan influence …”

   All Mk VII/Mk VIII material IMHO has, Gillan’s influence today is much more prominent than it ever was in Mk II – I hear Ian Gillan Band and Gillan (the band) influences in Steve Morse era DP all the time. With Ritchie gone (who now has found someone to sing more conventional and ear-friendly melodies for him), there is no one to hold Big Ian back in constructing vocal melodies in the way he likes and depending on which end of the Rainbow you are sitting, that is either welcome or grating. I found Ian Gillan Band, Gillan and even Born Again era Sabbath more adventurous and off-the-wall than anything Rainbow (any incarnation) or Whitesnake (early Whitesnake were great, but inventors of a new sound they were not) did, so I’m happy with Ian’s large footprint, he keeps Purple a little edgy/Progish.

   June 27th, 2022 at 23:32
9. 9
   Adel Faragalla says:

   Uwe Hornung@8
   I agree with your comments, Ian Gillan is adventurous with his music and I love the diversity of songs on Born Again even though it received bad comments about the the album from singers of Del Leopard and Judas Priest in an interview about the making of Born Again but I still love the creativity and the craziness of Ian Gillan lyrics and music.
   My only Criticism of DP is the fact that they never collaborated with external personal on writing new material even though they were happy to record cover songs on their album.
   As far as my limited knowledge is concerned I think they only collaborated with Michael Bradford on the song Walk On from the Bannans album as he is included in the credits.
   Sometimes it’s not a crime if you can’t were your own cloth all the time.
   I wish they tried other people’s cloth on and mixed and matched.
   Also let’s not forget how Perpendicular was and still is a great album due to the endless riffs that Steve Morse was given out as idea to the band so it can be deployed into songs.
   Also I think Don Airey was a monster on the organ in The sum goes down from the Bannans album so if you consider them as outsiders who never joined DP then you will get the idea of having fresh ideas thrown at the table from different musicians.
   When Ian Gillan collaborated with decant musicians like Tony Iommi to write Out of mind and holy water for the charity album for the Armenian disaster appeal the results were two amazing songs and I rate them as the best of Ian Gillan work outside DP.
   I really think that any band members no matter how talented they are can benefit from new ideas.
   Peace 🤘 👍

   June 28th, 2022 at 20:16
10. 10
    MacGregor says:

    Too much of the Ian Gillan influence is one of the reasons I don’t like so much of the post Blackmore Deep Purple. Gillan needs to co-write with a very good musician or collaborate with a few very good musicians. We know of the collaborations that he is influenced by & at his most creative. Too much Gillan & Glover etc & not enough of something else that is sadly missing. That is why I hear Purpendicular & Now What as the two strongest albums songwriting wise. New creative fresh ideas from other influences at that time no doubt, but then it slides off the radar again. I have noticed over the recent years other Purple aficionados hear similar traits in MK7 & 8. Not to worry, the world keeps on turning, forever yearning. Cheers.

    June 28th, 2022 at 22:58
11. 11
    Uwe Hornung says:

    Ian can sometimes write and sing throwaway tosh, but Ritchie can dive into the netherworld of the utterly mundane too, Jon could be twee/syrupy in his writing (that all too pastoral/floral English classicism), Roger in his songwriting just too nice & drama-less, with Steve’s and Don’s songwriting you always hear that they are strong instrumentalists first …

    No one within DP was ever Lennon/McCartney, let’s face it. In hindsight, I would say that, yes, Tommy Bolin was probably the most complete songwriter Purple ever had. He might not have had the mindset to learn Ritchie’s Highway Star solo properly, but the man had a hand in taking a few simple chords and writing a song. Tommy wasn’t the greatest singer, not the greatest guitarist and not the greatest songwriter, but as a package he was something special (if not made for the stadium rock confinements of Purple, he didn’t really read his job description).

    Purple was always a band that also relied (and had to rely) on its instrumental brawn and the virtuosity of the key soloists, nothing wrong with that, flaunt your strengths! Take away the solos from DP and you end up with Uriah Heep, minus the catchy choruses and the stacked harmony vocals of course.

    There is a lot of truth in Big Ian’s observation that Purple is essentially an instrumental band where he gets invited to sing in places. And Gillan’s great contribution to the Purple sound is just that, he doesn’t require the band’s music to be song- and/or vocal line-friendly (and it often isn’t), that sets him apart from Rod Evans, David Coverdale, Glenn Hughes and Joe Lynn Turner.

    Are Big Ian’s vocal lines easy on the ears? Very often and quite consciously so: not at all. He’s neither a pop/AOR, nor a metal nor a blues singer, he’s Ian Gillan. For the most part, I love what he does.

    June 29th, 2022 at 22:23
12. 12
    MacGregor says:

    There is no doubt about Ian Gillan being such a big part of the DP songwriting success. Much more than other lead vocalist’s DP have had & so it should be, he is a quality musician. It is probably more to do with the ‘all musicians run out of new ideas’ thing as their careers evolve, it happens to them all eventually they are only human. Or maybe we can get tired of the same old melody lines etc, I don’t know. Is it we (or some of us) becoming the proverbial ‘grumpy old man’ & putting up with less of certain things as our lives move into our twilight. Can we be too analytical at times, I certainly can be & do we have too high a expectation? Anyway we like what we like & we leave what we don’t like behind in many ways, a bit like most things in life. At least Gillan is involved in the songwriting, unlike some lead vocalist over the decades. Roger Daltrey, although he had Pete Townshend writing there & providing vocal melodies also. Art Garfunkel the same situation with Paul Simon the writer & a vocalist. I read a Bernie Shaw interview a little while ago & he said he doesn’t get into Uriah Heep’s songwriting process at all, ever. I find that strange in a way, but maybe he isn’t confident about it & doesn’t mind leaving it to someone else. David Byron didn’t get into it much although he did a little at times, again Ken Hensley was a strong songwriter writer & not a bad vocalist in his way so maybe Byron took a back seat. I guess it comes back to who is providing the main inspiration at the time for each composition. Gillan has to be the man one would think. Cheers.

    June 29th, 2022 at 23:55
13. 13
    Rock Voorne says:

    ” There is a lot of truth in Big Ian’s observation that Purple is essentially an instrumental band where he gets invited to sing in places.”

    I saw him lie about stuff many times, like about the attendances during the TBRO tour.

    I recall him suggest that what many of us loved so much about the band , the long instrumental parts, the soloing was out of date,so……

    Over the years he made a big point of having to be progressive and that je left partly in 1972 because he felt they were stagnating to the same formula.

    True, he tried to inject a lot of change during the decades since in his IGB, Gillan and later DP .

    But how progressive it really could have been if they had chosen totally revamped setlists since Blackmore left?

    Sometimes they really went yhat way but in the end they chose for decades to rely on the older stuff when doing shows.

    I was one of the people suggesting a triple live album of the Lord/Morse years MAINLY consisting of songs of that years and adding stuff they pulled from the old catalogue like WABMC, Bloodsucker, Pictures of Home, Fools, Anyones Daughter, No One Came, Mary Long, etc
    Plus ofcouse just a but of the classics like Highway Star , Perfect Strangers.

    I never got why that era wasnt celebrated with a box like that.

    I m not sure if that is a retorical thought.

    July 13th, 2022 at 16:44
14. 14
    Uwe Hornung says:

    I’m with you, RV, but DP play gigs for the casual listener, not the devoted like us. They like to sell tickets. I for one would pay a premium for a gig where they play nothing that is not Mk VII/VIII, I know how Smoke On The Water goes.

    I also think its outright weird that to this day there is not a single compilation on the market concentrating on Mk III/IV – the Coverdale/Hughes Years so to say.

    The most progressive albums – if you ignore Don’s work with Colosseum II and Andrew Lloyd Webber (‘Variations’) – in the extended Purple family are IGB’s Clear Air Turbulence, Jon Lord’s Windows, Roger Glover’s Elements and Tommy Bollin’s work with Billy Cobham and Alphonse Mouzon. So you’re right, Ian does put the PROG in Purple, meanwhile aided by Steve and Don. Their new music is certainly less immediate and commercial than what Mk II offered in its heyday – Ritchie undeniable has an ear for catchy melodies and the hands for memorable, not overly complicated riffs.

    But Ritchie’s time as a riff merchant who made you cream in your pants as a Purple/Rainbow fan when you heard something new from him seems to be over to me. Knocking On Your Back Door was his last really majestic riff – and that was almost 40 years ago (his last recorded rock album with fresh riffs was Stranger In Us All in 1995). And he wasn’t always consistent in delivery either, you can’t force inspiration and there seemed to be a cycle with Purple and Rainbow where good albums were often followed by not so good or at least not as immediate ones. He has come up with so many great ones in the pantheon of rock riffs that he has perhaps dried up.

    July 14th, 2022 at 14:59
15. 15
    HardRockPete says:

    At the moment they sound great! I love «No need to shout» and «Nothing at all» so all’s good as far as I’m concerned. Would love to hear «Throw my bones» live, but I guess I can’t have it all.

    September 26th, 2022 at 12:46

Add a comment: