On January 22 Dutch keyboard wizard Rick van der Linden passed away after suffering a brain stroke in November. Rick was the very best keyboard player ever in the Netherlands, better than Keith Emerson and on a par with Rick Wakeman.
As far as I know the only (remote) connection to Deep Purple is Rick playing on Eddie Hardin’s Wind in the Willows.
He came to prominence in the Netherlands at the end of the 60s with the group Ekseption, playing popular adaptations of well known classic pieces like Beethoven’s Fifth and Katchaturian’s Sabre Dance. This was a group with trumpets and saxes instead of guitars, and almost no vocals. In 1974 he founded Trace, a power trio like Emerson Lake and Palmer. Later on he had an off and on relation with Ekseption, finally owning the name in the 90s.
Three years ago he restarted the name Ekseption, with friends from Canada. A more common lineup with keyboards, guitar, bass and vocals, reinterpreting the old Ekseption and Trace songs. I saw them at one of their concerts (first time I saw Rick live), and it was great. Introducing his grand song Gaillarde, it was like “we start off on piano, then improvise like Deep Purple, and then go on to the end of the song’. And indeed, Rick improvised magnificently on the Hammond. Any future plans he had then and announced on stage never came true, because of his ill health, causing his death last week.
More information on www.ekseption.nl. Several greatest hits CDs of Ekseption exist, and all three Trace elpees are reissued on CD. To appreciate his genius, listen to the first Trace CD, called Trace. Magnificent, it is.

Rob Slegtenhorst

Ever wondered what Jon Lord is up to these days? Apparently he has heard that the Brazilian government likes musicians so he took the name Jacques Wagner and became Brazil’s Minister of Institutional Relations. 🙂

(Thanks to Rodrigo Werneck for the picture!)

Edel will release a special Tour Edition of “Rapture Of The Deep“. The release date is set to February 2. The album will feature 4 additional live recordings as well as the 10 original tracks. You can preorder the CD in our shop.
1. Money Talks
2. Girls Like That
3. Wrong Man
4. Rapture Of The Deep
5. Clearly Quite Absurd
6. Don’t Let Go
7. Back To Back
8. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
9. Junkyard Blues
10. Before Time Began
11. Rapture Of The Deep (live)
12. Wrong Man (live)
13. Highway Star (live)
14. Smoke On The Water (live)
Thanks to Rockahead.

Steve Morse took some time off and wrote a letter the day after the the premier of Rapture Of The Deep World Tour. Here is a few bits:

“Last night was our first official night of the “Rapture” tour. We played about 6 tunes from the album. While some of the endings were, uh, quite spontaneous, overall it felt great.”

“There seems to be more lights, screens and stuff backstage than I can remember
ever seeing, so the show will look and sound good from out front, I expect.”

Read the full letter here

Thanks to Steve Morse for the information.

Another Astoria review with photos.

FaceCulture met Ian Gillan in Amsterdam. They discussed the history of Deep Purple, the new album "Rapture Of The Deep", church, religion, death, suicide, Bono, infinity, the metafysical world etc. Watch the video interview here.
Thanks to FaceCulture for the information.

Check out a couple of Lyon reviews (in French).

2006-01-19 Halle Tony Garnier, Lyon, France

4 stars [out of 5]

The T-shirts are out tonight – if they don’t list previous tour dates of Deep Purple, they’re for Iron Maiden or AC/DC. Over the decades, these bands’ public standing has gone from lock-up yer-daughters shock to a fond nostalgia. But Deep Purple’s fan base is so dependable, despite the band having lost their guitarist and co-founder Ritchie Blackmore over a decade ago, that tonight sees them beginning a two-year world tour.

Perhaps its the breadth of their style that has served them so well. Certainly, the guitar solos are there, superbly managed by the hands of Steve Morse, but it’s the piano and organ solos that really capture the imagination. Don Airey plays his keyboards with a gorgeous lightness, sometimes delving towards honky tonk and funk, raising a laugh by leading from an epic solo into a few sneaky bars of Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner.

Like a Barbara Cartland novel, the music of Deep Purple contains a lot more build-up than climax, although Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming, with its vocal lead, reminds us that they can also do pop. Lemmy from Motorhead has said he gets so bored of singing Ace of Spades that he often changes the words, but there’s no such tricks from Ian Gillan, who seems genuinely delighted when they end their set with their classic Smoke on the Water. His whole band are incandescent; men reunited with the thing they love the most.

(c) The Guardian, Sophie Heawood

I was at the opening date of the Rapture Of The Deep world tour and things seem promising.

The band were a little loose, on several occasions they had to check the sequencing on some tunes to make sure they got it right! Gillan frequently consulted a folder of lyrics placed on the drum riser. But they were still belting!

The band was class, and it was great to have it in-yer-face, instead of the arena I saw them in at Wembley. It was bloody loud (a v.good thing) and the mix was generally very good.

It was certainly a thrill to hear them storm on with ‘Pictures of Home’. Gillan manged to get through a plethora of microphones early on. The set list took me by suprise, less hits and lots of Rapture material, which I enjoyed immensely but which pissed off others. Didn’t think they’d do ‘Back To Back’ or ‘Before Time Began’ and was a bit suprised to hear ‘Ted the Mechanic’ and ‘Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming’, though they didn’t quite pull off the latter.

‘Living Wreck’ was a real highlight too. Again, there was little respect shown to the intro for ‘Lost Contact’, which was sad. Steve Morse enjoyed a lot of showcases in his inimitable style. He’s a real mastery of his instrument. The only quibble I have is he didn’t really nail some of his own distorted riffs, marring the glorous lick to ‘Perfect Strangers’ and ‘Space Truckin’. Still, I don’t mind Morse taking risks and it will get better as the tour progresses.

Airey’s keyboards have become integral to Purple and were very inventive, but his solo was too brief and Paicey didn’t get one. Roger Glover did and displayed his class, playing fingerstyle occassionally and melodic nouse.
‘Highway Star’ was perhaps the highlight, with the whole band rocking out at the front and headbanging in time to the music.

The usual features of a Purple gig were there, lots of smiles, air keyboards, general mucking about and throwing picks to the crowd.

As a tour warm up, it was fantastic, with a crowd full of all sorts of people. Lots of kids my age, 17-20 year olds. Pretty girls too! As the tour progresses, they will be sensational.

Sam Knight, London