![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/morse1.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/mcbride2.jpg)
One for the musician’s enthusiast
Couple of press reviews of the Leeds gig on November 7.
Two years since they last visited, the veteran band have lost none of their zest for woozy-bluesy solos and progressive time signatures.
Review: “Alright, alright, alright, Leeds,” Ian Gillan pronounces with a short wag of his finger, before the septuagenarian singer waves his arm across the full crowd before him. “It’s great to be back. A few calypso classics to get you in the mood, perhaps?” A steady roll of weathered chuckles and soft titters emerge from out of the darkness, and the frontman rewards them with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge grin.
There is, of course, little in the way of Caribbean vibes when it comes to Deep Purple, unless you count the fronded shirt patterns sported by keyboardist Don Airey. One of the most highly regarded rock bands of the twentieth century, they are considered a key progenitor in the birth of heavy metal by many who followed in their footsteps; a fascinating notion in part when viewed against the prism of the modern-day scene given their lone-guitar approach and woozy-bluesy penchant for progressive time signatures and movements.
Continue reading in Leeds Live.
It`s quite incredible to think that over 55 years after cracking the American singles chart with ‘Hush’, Rock legends, Deep Purple, have, 23 albums and 100 million album sales later, have finally landed a UK Number One single with ‘Lazy Sod’ from their latest release ‘=1’.
Quite an achievement for a band in the twilight of their career.
Kicking off with traditional set opener ‘Highway Star’, the first of four from their classic ‘Machine Head’ opus and the finest driving song of them all was always going to set things off with a bang. Guitarist Simon McBride`s interplay with keyboardist Don Airey was astonishing. Close your eyes for a moment, it was if the originals Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore were duelling as if their lives depended on it. They were that good.
Continue reading in The Yorkshire Post (and see our notes regarding their paywall).
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
les originaux de Jon lord et Ritchie blackmore????faut pas exagérer…. loin de là même très loin!
November 10th, 2024 at 15:03I have to say: Even a hopeless sarcast like me cannot help but be chuffed by this. For decades, Purple met nothing but ire in their home country. Now they‘re all of the sudden turning national treasure.
Let‘s all be honest, did anyone of us think on the advent of the reunion ‘84 that DP would still be recording, gigging and having no 1s 40 years into the future with 3/5 of the most famous line-up intact? I sure didn‘t. I would have been happy had the reunion lasted for a decade.
November 10th, 2024 at 22:09@2, it’s nice that Purple is receiving all these plaudits recently, but where were all those enthusiastic journalists during the Morse years? There was some great quality songs on the Morse-era albums, some of which were showcased during their tours, along with the classic nuggets; yet Purple were almost totally ignored for all those years, except of course by its fan base. I gave up eons ago on having any hope or expectation that the American music press would give the Purples any attention. Now, even though it has taken well over 50 years, the Brit music press is finally warming up to Purple. Maybe it’s dawning on people that real music played by real musicians is far more satisfying than the artifically manufactured, mindless pap which has been pumped out for the past couple of decades.
November 11th, 2024 at 00:34I’ve been wondering about that too. The nasty explanation would be that British scribes would rather see their arm wither away than write something appreciative about a man from former tax-dodging and harbor-waters-contaminating colonies.
Steve is a wonderful musician and person, but he has neither rock star appeal nor is he really the “piss (or spit) & vinegar” type Being voted #1 guitarist and having a hay farm in Florida as well as being a model citizen for decades in the band and happily married is commendable, but not all that newsworthy (“STOP PRESS: Longstanding Yank guitarist in DP still a happy and exemplary band member: ‘I’m making hay both with the band and on my farm!’”?😂). It’s a bit like writing about Tom Hanks’ private life, Leonardo DiCaprio’s romantic exploits and his reliably youthful girlfriends from the acting and model world are just more interesting.
Simon is at least Northern Irish if not really Brit, he’s considerable younger than the other dinosaurs in the band plus has that ”rags to riches”-appeal, he’s a more physical + edgy on stage and has a street urchin/punkish attitude unlike mellow Steve, the Southern gentleman.
Yes, the world is cruel and unjust, I’ve always said it.
November 11th, 2024 at 12:32Uwe, I can see how Arnel’s rags to riches story gave Journey a nice story to the press, but it’s not as if McBride grew up in the streets and that this is the reason why they are getting press attention. DP are one of the last of a dying breed, as in big rock bands from the 70s. This gives them a level of attention they didn’t have in the 90s, when hard rock was out of fashion. This has nothing to do with Morse or McBride being in the band. I would have understood your labelling if you described Bernie Torme, but McBride being “punk”? If anything, his playing is ultra clean and without mistakes, inspired by the likes of Lukather and Satriani, not Torme. Unchain your brain 🙂
November 12th, 2024 at 04:35Yes Uwe @4, you have hit the nail squarely on the head. It is simply one more example of the rock media trading in superficialities and nonsense not necessarily nor solely related to the actual musical product of an artist’s / group’s labours. The hype machine prefers that artists have a bit of grime, a bit of an edge, or a bit of a naughty or tawdry angle to them. “If it bleeds it leads”, hence biting off a bat’s head will get one all the attention one could possibly want. Or flitting about the stage adorned in one’s mother’s blouse is yet another winner of an approach.
As Steve was the perfect gentlemen with no “show biz” pretensions; the most important things – (ie): his music and talent, were never de rigeur in the rock music rags. Hence Purple continued to be ignored as per usual. Typical. I have come to expect it after having observed same for the past 50 plus years.
November 12th, 2024 at 04:53@4.
about 50% of the Northern Irish population would (possibly violently) not agree with you that they are not British!
One of the reasons why Brexit was such a bodge was because the UK parliament had to placate the Protestants in the North who consider themselves British.
I’ve no idea (and don’t care) which side of the tracks Simon is btw and I’m sure Jesus (if he existed and if he came back) would be horrified by the sectarian divide.
November 12th, 2024 at 15:22Daniel, Arnel’s story was of course no less than touching.
I dunno, I found Simon already quirky/punkish when I only knew him from the Don Airey Band. That haircut (my wife says it cannot really be described as such!), his pale complexion, having to apply for work in a supermarket (and not even getting it) and Belfast being the city it is even to this day, there is an edge to the man even if he’s not a sloppy player (but not as academic as Steve either).
For whatever reason, Simon has turned out to be Viagra for DP and they are now purpendicular with him or should I perhaps say ‘fully erect’? ☝️🤓 And that newfound virility is rubbing off on the media response. It’s great that they are experiencing it at this late (st)age, we all know that nature can set an end to it any day now and that everyday is another gift. May the record-tour-record-tour cycle be unbroken forever, but of course it won’t.
Bernie Tormé, bless him and his “Adam Ant meets The Damned” charm, wouldn’t have had the skills to be DP’s lead guitarist. Already Janick Gers was quite a bit more proficient and he ain’t the best guitarist in Iron Maiden’s axemen trio either, that is no doubt Adrian Smith.
November 12th, 2024 at 17:33Yo,
@2…Leiber Uwe stated…( re Mk-II reunion )…
qt.”I would have been happy had the reunion lasted for a decade”….
LOL ! It did !
Adonai !
November 13th, 2024 at 11:50In a way it did, Gregster, I noticed that too while I was writing it (nine years to be exact and you have to ignore the intermission with the man from Hackensack, NJ).
David, I always thought that Northern Ireland is NOT a part of Great Britain which is why the full name is “United Kingdom of Great Britain AND Northern Ireland”. So Northern Ireland is part of the UK, but not part of Great Britain, rather Great Britain and Northern Ireland TOGETHER make up the UK. Is that wrong?
Judging from Simon’s Scottish last name McBride I would gather that he has Protstant roots because British settler immigration to Ireland consisted largely of Scots (who, ironically, were once Catholic – –> Mary Stuart -, but were forced into Protestantism following the Union of England and Scotland centuries before).
The conflict between Unionists and Irish Republicans (the euphemistically called “Troubles”) was of course terrible and unnecessary. Religion was (mis)used by both sides to create identity, but at the core of the conflict lay the antagonism between original population and new settlers as well as class differences.
History will tell, but I believe the DPU made a strategic mistake when they opted for BREXIT. It was a knee jerk reaction by the Protestants of clinging to the Union, but it missed the crucial point that without BREXIT the pressure on Eire and Northern Ireland to merge would have lessened over the decades as questions of borders, boundaries and nationality would have become less and less relevant for everyday life. In a ‘United States of Europe’ both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic/Eire could have coexisted forever.
It’s just an assumption, but I always thought that artists from Eire such as Rory Gallagher (Mancunians Noel and Liam share his last name because they are the descendants of Irish immigrants that moved to Northern England), Phil Lynott, Bob Geldof, the guys from U2, Shane MacGowan/The Pogues, Andrew Strong (The Commitments) and Glen Hansard/The Frames were all Catholic-rooted, while musicians from Belfast/Northern Ireland like Van Morrison, Gary Moore, these guys here (Silent Running, which I love)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcXnebH_muA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU5tO01Z3yQ
and of course Simon McBride were Protestant-rooted. (I’m using the terms ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’ strictly as a cultural reference, Bob Geldof for instance is an avowed atheist and had a Jewish-German grandmother from Britain.)
There is this bitter saying in Northern Ireland among Republicans of “We were the first British colony – and we are the last one!”
November 14th, 2024 at 01:21Yo,
@10…
Yes, religion keeps on proving itself to be the greatest hypocrisy on the planet, & likely the most deleterious too.
Find your own “god” connexion folks, & leave-out the middle-men…You don’t need them. The world will be a much better place without their influence…
Long live DP.
Adonai !
November 14th, 2024 at 10:02