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Choosing not to do just staples
Delaware Daily News has a tad superficial, but without any major mistakes review of the Deep Purple gig in Philadelphia metro area:
It was about a 90 minute show on February 10, 2023, and this band could have walked through all of the radio staples they have and called it a night. They chose not to do that. They opened with Highway Star and then played newer songs that resonated well with the crowd. They also took care of business with tracks that might not have gotten a lot of radio airplay. “Anya”, is a song that has been around for decades. It starts out slow and the tempo slowly builds into a rocker.
Read more in Delaware Daily News.
Photo: Alex LLoyd Gross/DelawareDailyNews.com
Thanks to Tobias Janaschke for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Yo, I have to admit that I really like Simon’s guitar sound / tone…The front pick-up tone is really easy to get along with imo. Neither Stratocater or Hum-bucker sounding, yet somewhere in-between. And certainly not the pleasingly clear EMG tones available either. ( Yes, my opinion from the other post in the other thread but)….
Awesome to have the band playing newer songs with new members imo, & that audiences are appreciative too.
Peace !
February 14th, 2023 at 07:5090 minutes ? Shorter and shorter. I guess because of Gillan’s voice.
February 14th, 2023 at 09:09Simon’s guitar sound is much less processed than Steve’s. You could also say it’s a lot less American and more in the Brit guitar sound school of Blackmore, Gallagher (Rory, not Noel, though Noel sounds Brit of course too and would be insulted if I claimed anything different here!), Clapton, Gary Moore, Mick Taylor, David Gilmour, Dave Clempson etc. (Though some Americans can have a Brit sound too, take Slash for example.)
Steve’s creamy distortion, compression and ultra-sustain defined a lot of Mk VII’s and VIII’s band sound. I’m not saying that one is better than the other, but the difference is vast. Steve had a late 70ies/early 80ies inspired sound – the era after Mesa Boogie guitar amps had been introduced and become popular.
February 15th, 2023 at 15:26At my age, I think 90 minutes from any band is ample! One of the longest more recent concerts I saw was one by the Tedeschi Trucks Band, which approached three hours (with an intermission). Varied and great as their music is and the gig was, I thought it a bit long if you watch it standing!
February 15th, 2023 at 15:30Three hours is way too long for a concert of any description, as well as a movie viewing & that includes with comfortable seating. I can understand certain artists playing for about 100 minutes. Heaven & Hell were about that length of time in 2007 & I had had enough of the intensity of it by then. Iommi’s amps stacked right in front of you can do that. It was a great experience & maybe in my younger days I would have craved an eternity of that. About 2 hours is a good maximum length for me & others I have talked to about things over staying there welcome. Regarding Mesa Boogie amps they are what Tony Iommi used on the Born Again album, from my memory. I don’t think he stayed with them long after that though. Cheers.
February 15th, 2023 at 19:43All Marvel superhero movies should end mandatorily after 90 minutes. There is a reason why the weekly comics weren’t 150 pages long either.
I didn’t know about the Mesa Boogies and Born Again – would explain the hugely dense sound he had on that album.
February 15th, 2023 at 22:39@4
I remember a time when Purple gigs were at least 1h45, even 2 hours and more with the encores, but that’s another time.
Of course I understand that Gillan is now really tired. He is very old, good for scrap. A real “living wreck” as he used to sing => https://youtu.be/_pDKMBcRyXI
You can hear he struggles to sing on the lastest YouTube videos. It’s getting close to the end.
Anyway I thank him for giving me great moments ! Thank you Ian !
February 16th, 2023 at 19:52Yo, time flies at a gig, especially if you’re playing one lol ! But certainly once you get to a solid 2-hrs of playing-time, you’re feeling it, & your fingers & general drop-in-energy start to say “Hey, you’ve been up here a while “….
I’d suggest that a 90-minute show, with a 15-30 minute encore ( if warranted & necessitated ) is ample time, for both performers & audiences alike.
For “our boys” to be up there delivering the goods for a solid 90-minutes is simply amazing, & it’s likely that song selection is more difficult thing to do than playing !
Mesa-Boogie are great amps, especially with “dual rectification” incorporated, where sustain & creamy over-drive are limitless…Reliability was an issue with them for a while, but I don’t ever recall Santana complaining about them.
( Possibly a poor batch of tubes used in there for a while ) ?…
Peace !
February 17th, 2023 at 06:04@7 helltopay I really wonder how you will feel when you reach the age of 77-78 and people younger than yourself will cruelly describe you as “good for scrap”….
February 17th, 2023 at 07:10Oh, I remember that, the mesas were fickle beasts in the beginning, good as they sounded. And that was’n just true for the guitar combos, but also the bass rigs they introduced much later. Those sounded great, but reliability was again an issue. If you have a bass or guitar tech who knows his job that doesn’t bother you much, you’ll just have to live with sort of revolving maintenance & repair cycles all the time (having one or two spares helps!). Like with a Formula 1 car.
Not an amp for Ritchie though. He didn’t prefer that much distortion or overdrive in his sound, he just wanted to be hellishly loud! : – )
February 17th, 2023 at 13:03@10…Very true Uwe, & apparently the bulk of all tube-amp designs stem from Leo Fender’s original designs, & are subtle variations of that circuit, Marshall included.
Why they are sometimes called “valves” is because they have a rectification / diode attribute, where in the power section of the amp, they convert the A/C current into D/C by only allowing the “+” positive aspect of the A/C wave-form to flow through.
And what was once a cheap replacement part(s) is now quite expensive, with regards to the tubes / valves, & reliability can be unpredictable depending on what you grab when needed…You wouldn’t believe what the asking-price is for some vintage tubes now-days…Some vintage 12-AX7’s fetch nearly $1,000:00 USD per pair…
*The general industry standard for manufacturing tubes however (for those interested), is 5,000-hrs of use, or 2,000 heat cycles ( start-up’s). Military grade variants are guaranteed to reach & exceed this minimum threshold, though some argue that they don’t produce enough gain, but how much is too much, & how much is not enough ???. And gain in this respect isn’t necessarily over-drive, it’s a possible reduction in max.-volume-out-put, sometimes called “head-room”.
Tube amps are still my preferred beast, as there’s a very unique communication that happens between amp, guitar & performer, & it’s not just a sweeter sound. The way the combination of all involved works together as a unit is unparalleled imo, even if the new modeling amps can replicate the sound quite well.
I’m sure that our boys likely use tube-amps where possible, simply because you’re inspired every-time you play through one !
Peace !
February 17th, 2023 at 20:49I know Iommi used modified Marshalls on Heaven and Hell, then switched to Mesa Boogies on the Mob Rules album and tour. I think recording Born Again he used a combination of Mesa Boogie, Marshall, and Laney recording the album. Live I don’t know what he had. When I saw Sabbath the first time on the Cross Purposes Tour, he was back to Laney amps and cabs. Here where I live there are a couple music stores that carry Mesa Boogie amps and I’ve heard some great local players say nothing but good things about them.
February 19th, 2023 at 04:11As for Born Again when I first got into Purple Sabbath Dio Whitesnake etc as a teenager in the late 80’s I loved that album. Nowadays I rarely listen to it and actually dislike it a bit, I think of it as a mistake. Sorry…
My three favorite albums featuring Ian Gillan outside of Deep Purple are Clear Air Turbulence, Born Again & Accidentally on Purpose (you can tell that I like it when he does radical departures!) – if you want to make it four, add the studio side of Double Trouble to the fold.
Yeah, Laneys, that is what I identify Iommi the most with.
I found Born Again a really interesting, even mesmerizing musical combination, I haven’t heard an album sounding remotely like it before or after. It was a grunge progenitor and also a bit “thinking man’s metal”. Stuff like Disturbing the Priest and Born Again (the ballad) was really a one-of-a-kind music. It had elements of Sabbath and the more off-the-wall Mk II/Gillan (the band) output, but it forged it into something new and exciting. Somehow it connected with me, still does.
Of course, with the amount of Sabbath back catalog the project had to lug around live and Ian’s disdain for singing other people’s stuff on a permanent basis, it could have never lasted, even without the imminent Purple reunion. But it was a great detour from the expected. Compared to Born Again, Perfect Strangers is a very safe and conventional record, giving the public what it craved for back then.
February 20th, 2023 at 14:54Uwe said…qt.” Compared to Born Again, Perfect Strangers is a very safe and conventional record, giving the public what it craved for back then “…
And the output got better & better too, with THoBL, & TBRO…With the proof laying in the “Please don’t purchase ” Live in Europe boxed-set from 1993…The sound is great, you get 2 x full shows over 4 x discs, & the performances are quite good…Yes, it’s not MIJ, but has its moments where it does come pretty close, & you “could” make your own version from the 2 x available shows where it does…( Anyhow, it is the 30th anniversary since the Mk-II (b) demise, & the LP’s are much better than “Nobody’s Perfect” imo ).
Indeed, it’s hard to make a set-list !
Peace !
February 20th, 2023 at 23:42My problem with Sabbath is like the way I view Led Zeppelin. Overly popular and too much hype around them.
February 21st, 2023 at 02:12I loved Zeppelin, in highschool, but I heard them too much. When Sabbath reunited with the original lineup in the late 90’s and they got long overdue recognition I was very happy. At the same time bands like Purple still are largely overlooked, and they are so much better musically. Plus Ozzy Osbourne’s foolish behavior I cannot stand. I’m still upset that bands like Tull, ELP, Heep are so overlooked. While Sabbath have become musical genius’s? The only Sabbath albums I listen to are the Dio era ones and Technical Ectasy , and if I’m driving and Sabbath or Zep come on Sirius radio, I usually switch to a different station.