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Shock to the system

Ahead of the current =1 More Time UK tour, Ian Gillan spoke to the PA News Agency, and the conversation steered, of all things, onto the ’72 tour that produced Made in Japan. In Japan, I noticed the first thing was the cultural change. I was able to do two things, one to learn about […]

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Up top and down below

Westfälische Nachrichten reviews the October 26 Deep Purple gig in Lingen. It starts with mentioning the combined age of those on stage (354) and continues: Superlatives that raise questions among the 4,500 visitors in the sold-out Emsland Arena. Can the old rockers still do it, or are they resting on their laurels for “Smoke on […]

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It’s better than gold

Deep Purple were awarded platinum records for =1 by the Czech certification authority ČNS IFPI. The awards were presented at the recent show in the neighbouring Katowice, Poland. According to the Czech rules, an album can be certified platinum if it achieved a turnover based on wholesale price before VAT of at least 1,000,000 Kč […]

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Much too short

Deep Purple live at Emsland Arena (Lingen, Germany 2024-10-26) First the complaints: The gig in Lingen, Germany, last Saturday was much too short! They should have played at least 22 hours longer. Then I could have heard a good bunch of my favourite DP songs.. But after two hours the old and lazy sods seemed […]

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Up and down, in and out, back and front

Ian Gillan was interviewed by The Portugal News (which is kinda sorta his hometown newspaper now). He gave his views on the number of tracks from =1, and on the arrival of Simon McBride as the newest member of the band. Which was a good thing because… […] it put the band back into simpler […]

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The world’s on fire, apparently

The physical single for Lazy Sod was released on CD and vinyl on October 11, 2024, with a whopping circulation of 2,000 copies worldwide (not clear if this is for each format, or combined total). In this day and age, even that landed it in the British charts: #21 on the Official Singles Sales Chart […]

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At the controls of a spacecraft

On this slow(ish) news day, we will leave you with a couple of items that the mailman delivered to our trainspotting department. Sir Elton Hercules John writes about the keyboard geniuses who blew his mind for The Guardian. Jon Lord gets a mention: And as the decade progressed, keyboard players progressed too, away from their […]

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The melody is hot and the message so sweet

Deep Purple opened the final leg of the 2024 tour with a show at the Spodek in Katowice, Poland, on October 17. The setlist got a bit of a shakeup, with 6 songs off the last album being played live. Spoilers inside.

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Couple of bars or a chord change

Prior to his recently concluded Australian tour, Glenn Hughes appeared on the Scars and Guitars podcast. He talked about Purple marks 3 & 4, the Hughes/Thrall project, collaborations with Tony Iommi, Dead Daisies, and many other things.

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Real joy flowing through it

An online publication called Cult Following somewhat belatedly, but eloquently reviews =1: New hard rock from the Smoke on the Water gang. Some things never change. With Deep Purple, a lacklustre album image and the promise of unwavering rock fundamentals are a guarantee. No problem for those stuck with this sound for decades but some […]

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