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Après Vous in Nicosia
The highly controversial Northern Cyprus gig held this past weekend was a free concert, organized by the Near East University on occasion of their 25th anniversary. Ian Gillan did interviews, parts of which you can see below (in piss poor editing):
Some more bits appear on the university web site, albeit still mostly exchange of pleasantries.
And for the sake of all this not to be your complete waste of time, here’s the (almost) complete show, filmed if not professionally, but with a decent camera on a tripod:
Thanks to Yvonne Osthausen for the info and to Nikita Turovsky for posting video of the gig.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
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May 28th, 2014 at 21:41Playing in Northern Cyprus is only controversial to the Greeks. Lovely place, stayed near Girne (or Kyrenia if you prefer) a few years ago.
May 28th, 2014 at 21:42@ Ian Grant: it would be perhaps the same to you, if 40 years ago Germans had been invading lets say South England from Dover – part of London – all the way to Bristol destroying buildings and occupying properties of English people and having UN doing nothing, playing politics.
May 29th, 2014 at 04:27Yes, south England. Lovely place, stayed near Bristolburg (or Bristol if you prefer) and Brixtonheim (or Brixton if you prefer) some years ago.
And the Germans living there brought from Germany? Wow! What hospitality!
Welcome to our beautiful country “England” (according to what this Turk translator was saying)…
Now is getting a bit annoying for you. Imagine to live it…
I hope Ian knows that the northern part of Cyprus is occupied by the Turks since 1974…the GREEK people love u IAN!!!But you can sent your message…
May 29th, 2014 at 05:03Amazing concert! Loves & peace from Turkey and Northern Cyprus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWjwcZOhUcA
May 29th, 2014 at 10:23No nation other than Turkey has officially recognised Northern Cyprus as a sovereign state. The United Nations recognises it as territory of the Republic of Cyprus under Turkish OCCUPATION.[34] Pakistan and Bangladesh had initially declared their recognition of Northern Cyprus as a sovereign state shortly after its declaration of independence, however they withdrew their recognition as a result of the UN having deemed the North Cypriot declaration illegal. The United Nations considers the declaration of independence by Northern Cyprus as legally invalid, as enunciated in several of its resolutions.[34][35]
Between 180,000 to 200,000 Greek Cypriots were forcibly evicted from their homes in the North by the invading force of the Turkish army
Playing there as guest of the occupants you serve the political games of Turkish Government. Rock has an attachment with liberty. But is there liberty in an occupant country?
May 29th, 2014 at 12:51Cyprus is the only divided country of the EU. Would you have played in East Germany during the collapse of the Berlin’s Wall? Would you have played in South Africa during the racist regime?
In the past many artists including Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna, and Justin Timberlake have cancelled concerts in the north after learning about the political situation in Cyprus.
May 29th, 2014 at 12:51UN has requested, all Governmental, public and private parties to refrain from providing any assistance of any kind to this illegal regime
May 29th, 2014 at 13:04This is rock’n roll with no boundaries and lies men…
May 29th, 2014 at 13:19The world is full of idiots.and most of them could not understand deep purple and music
May 29th, 2014 at 15:46I’d like to thank the editors for removing the first comment here. The band don’t deserve this. If someone thinks that gigging in occupied Northern Cyprus makes the current regime more legal let me remind you of two crippled Olympic Games back in 1980 and 1984 held in Moscow and L.A. respectively. The Western bloc boycotted the first one and Warsaw pact did the same thing four years later.
May 29th, 2014 at 20:58Who won? The answer is none!
The same here.
“We are not political animals!”, Jon Lord would say. Man, how right he is.
Until you say that what the band did was indecent or wrong or dishonorable that means you are being manipulated by the politicians. Music is beyond all that crap. It’s done for the people to enjoy and for the money to be able to pay the bills because that’s what they do. They do it for a living.
My country annexed Crimea which is a tremendous mistake. But I’ll be more than happy if the band perform in the city of Sevastopol one day. Because it’s done for the people. F… the politics! Do not let anyone manipulate you! Enjoy the show!
It’s a disgrace that DP plays in occupied northern Cyprus – but then again, they’re also happy to give private shows to the Russian cleptocracy for money, so no one should be surprised.
May 29th, 2014 at 21:04@11 finally a smart comment,Amen to that ! @ 13 I am surprised by your stupid comment! F… the politics !
May 30th, 2014 at 07:25The music is for the people, not the politicians
May 30th, 2014 at 08:24I sympathise with the Greek Cypriot’s cause, I really do, but Purple were there playing to the people not the politicians. There’s no way they should be vilified by their own fans for this.
May 30th, 2014 at 11:42@ 11
May 30th, 2014 at 16:12Hey Andrey,
you feel bad about your country annexing the Crimea while I feel bad about my governments
(I live in the EU) making terrible mistakes in the same matter. The cool thing is nowadaways that we meet
here on a website celebrating a rock band. And here lies the big achievement of bands like Purple and Rock’n’Roll in general: That it brings people (a lot of people) together instead of dividing them, no small thing
in these difficult times. Rock On.
IMO it’s not as easy as, “it’s for the fans”. The politicians are there. The politicians will try to use the fact that a band play or not play a place like this.
May 30th, 2014 at 21:44@ 16 I totally agree with you Joerg! Music brings people together!
May 31st, 2014 at 08:29Perhaps the 20,000 kids who have nothing to do with the political situation and loved the show shouldn’t have been allowed to see them then, if that would make you lot happy.
June 1st, 2014 at 19:28From the video,it was a solid show,with a fair chunk of Now What still featured.
June 2nd, 2014 at 19:24I hope that remains the case by the North American tour.
I think it would be the best, that the band’s next concert take place in a prison, not for the prisoners but for the guards.
Shame on you all.
Rock stands up from freedom, not for slavery.
Rock is for free people not for conquerors
It’s all about the money …what a pitty
June 3rd, 2014 at 10:24Who told Gillan to wear those lenses? Horrible indeed!
June 3rd, 2014 at 15:14I’ve loved this band for over 40 years, but this is an error in judgement. I feel a song coming on for their next album. Title? Ephialtes
June 22nd, 2014 at 13:54