![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan5.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/paice2.jpg)
With the wind in their hair
Deep Purple performing on February 16, 2023, out at sea, on the deck of Rock Legends Cruise. Pretty good quality audience recording. Check out the ‘all hands on deck’ moment during Lazy:
…It was a smooth sailing after that:
Thanks to David Huras and Gunther Records Inside Tracks for the clips, and to Amit for bringing them to your attention.
PS. As the first rule of wireless goes: if it’s possible to use a wire, use a wire. 😉
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
They should play on Mars next.
March 7th, 2023 at 18:03Peace ✌️
@1…That can be arranged, if you know the right people !…
Ah showbiz…Too bad about the technical hitch, but the band sounds great, & all is looking good for the next record !
Peace !
March 8th, 2023 at 01:53The aristocracy of rock band plays on a cruise ship!? I’m not really enthusiastic about the scene, but…. still sound is good , that young Irishman is fierce player
March 8th, 2023 at 07:36OK guys
As Biff sing
“We sat in the sun woah-oh-oh
and the bands played on”
Up to 4,000 fans on board, paying over $1,000 each – which for four nights is not outrageous.
I am not sure how much the bands get paid, but I am sure it helps the bank balance.
The promoters obviously are happy as they keep putting them on.
A 1,200 seater auditorium for two of the shows and one on deck.
Three 90 minute shows, so presumably a chance to try out some of the material that gets fewer outings on a US normal tour.
I love the quote, the cruise operates in the “ISH” time zone. When we say a show will start at 8:00 we mean 8:00-ish.
March 8th, 2023 at 14:21LOL, I don’t know what possessed Simon on that particular gig – it might have been the wireless malfunction, but he played already like that before the sound dropped out -, but he rushes like hell, is sloppy and plays more bum notes than Steve ever did! ; – ) But he also does it with loads of charming derring-do, giving the band s real kick in its, jawohl, arse. It’s certainly fresh – the gigs with Steve had in hindsight become perhaps a tad too well-behaved and neat. Steve was always too much of a musician to be a guitar hero.
I’m happy to see them like that, bum-notes or not.
So now we have a slightly sloppy DP guitarist, but with balls galore – Herr MacGregor will no doubt be in ecstasy at such virile imperfection!
March 8th, 2023 at 15:42Ha ha ha, I haven’t watched it as yet & now I will have to no doubt. I wasn’t going to but this Uwe character has a way of getting people to watch & listen to things.
March 8th, 2023 at 22:33It depends how rough I suppose or how edgy. I agree with the Morse comment too, maybe these older guys do need a little ‘shaking going on’! It will be interesting to hear a new album of sorts, I will always have a listen as long as it is ‘clinically’ correct. Cheers.
Big Ian needs a haircut.
Badly.
March 9th, 2023 at 02:21Yes Simon is much more raw than Steve. All 3 shows were like that. I am not a good enough of a musician to tell you where the f ups are but I love the more raw sound to my ears. Steve was great but almost always perfect! Which live sometimes loses something in the music. Not sure why but that’s what my ears tell me. Not that Steve wasn’t great live he is and super smooth! Maybe it’s an edgyness. I will let the real musicians debate that. I’m just a hack that picked up a guitar late in life…
March 9th, 2023 at 04:09Well I watched Lazy & I am appalled. Why don’t DP use pre recorded backing tracks? It would sort out any issues if they arose & let’s face it, nobody these days would know any difference. Especially some fans here at THS. I am now going to listen to some real music, no mistakes & everything perfect ALL the time, Ed Sheeran & Taylor Swift. Cheers.
March 9th, 2023 at 05:07Well for the first time in ages DP sound revved up and a bit more like the band I fell in love with in 1970
March 9th, 2023 at 13:22I really thought with Steve ( with all due respects for rescuing them many moons ago )they were becoming a bit “cabaret” as time wore on. A bit plodding even.
Simon seems to have fired them up. Hooray!
And I don’t reckon Ian should have a haircut…. Now how looks like part of the best rock band there has ever been or will be. If they do another album, I reckon it’ll be a cracker!
I’m not knocking the Irish kid, he’s a breath of fresh air and in the less than 12 months since he has joined the band, his playing has become even more gung-ho. There is this Gary Moore “Make way for me!”-intensity and also a Rory Gallagher’ish abrasiveness to his playing.
That next album by Purple is gonna be really interesting. Come Taste The Band-type interesting.
Steve was always a committed player with Purple, make no mistake. But he’s not one who let the rubber of the tires burn. He was dedicated to his craft and to music, not to impressing teenagers (or as is the case with all of us here: eternal teenage minds in stunted development, yet locked in middle age and beyond bodies!).
Sometimes, you can be a little too good for the music you play. When I saw Whitesnake with Steve Vai, he was of course utterly amazing and mesmerizing to watch and hear, but at the same time you got the feeling that Whitesnake’s music was so beneath his abilities, he didn’t have to fight for anything. Like a professional and active NFL player training with the high school football team for a charity event, restraining himself so no one gets hurt.
March 9th, 2023 at 14:34Was there and saw the other 2 shows as well. Gillan picked up steam each show. The Boyz are playing well and all that needs to be added are some changed out tunes. Which ones you ask? All of them. Aside from that, damn good stuff. Though I miss Steve, the show must go on Thankfully and Simon is just right for the job. New Album underway (a little bird told me). Really looking forward to the next chapter. ROCK ON PURPLE!!!!!
March 9th, 2023 at 19:57I did find a little ‘humour’ in the unplugged incident. The rest of the band excepting Airey, were all of a sudden looking & wondering what was going, ala the old days. They didn’t have to worry about that with Steve Morse. now one could almost expect McBride to return to the stage far right with a attitude problem, lets trash it, the guitar first of all. As long as Don Airey doesn’t notice a roadie filling a tray with petrol & placing it on top of the amp right next to him, all should be ok. Cheers.
March 9th, 2023 at 23:34A haircut, come on Uwe, it’s rock ‘n roll, long hair has always been in, Gillan looks better than ever. (or as is the case with all of us here: eternal teenage minds in stunted development, yet locked in middle age and beyond bodies!). Ha ha ha. I will pay that one. I don’t know about the eternal teenage minds, we have evolved a little I hope, although I know what you mean. Good to see you mention ‘middle age’ & not elderly, (as yet). There is nothing wrong with a middle age rocker, it sounds & still feels ok. I am biased of course. Also like the constant reference to Rory Gallagher, bless him. Cheers.
March 10th, 2023 at 06:40Horses for courses, I liked Ian’s look in the end phase of Mk 2.1 and with the Ian Gillan Band better than his Jesus Christ Superstar look of the early 70ies (or his look with GILLAN – the band – or Black Sabbath to which he returned for a short time with Mk VII, that dyed-black long hair looked dead):
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/db/cb/8d/dbcb8d0ad09b9918a3f1f27048e3be76.jpg
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1/2018/10/01/18/4671182-6227487-Ian_Gillan_is_pictured_in_his_Deep_Purple_hey_day_in_1976_when_h-a-2_1538414628331.jpg
Also his shorter hair in more recent years. He has a handsome face, I’m happy to see more of it. That said, he’s still mourning for his wife
Coverdale’s hairdo looks ridiculous on a man his age these days. There is a time and season for everything.
March 12th, 2023 at 22:15Yes the Gillan band & Sabbath era was a good look for the head banging I suppose, the mane flying everywhere. He does look better with the half length long hair look. As for Goldilocks aka Coverdale yes indeed. Poor ole Cov’s, still trapped it seems in his vanity of youth. Father time doesn’t care too much for that though, time Mr Coverdale. Cheers.
March 13th, 2023 at 05:45I understood some “trickery” was involved to bring back a big hairdo to Mssrs Paice and Hughes.
Blackmore and JLT wore wigs, looked way better than many men trying to get away with a thinning hairline.
I do have a problem with fake but hey, if it looks good, it looks good?
I still have the Perfect Strangers Tour programme in which Gillan still shows the big long dyed hair. Or was that the special gatefold edition of FUTURE SHOCK? Ow, my dear…..I m in trouble…
Like many fans I wished for them to perpetuate the MK2 year both in sound and looks.
March 13th, 2023 at 20:31Both were denied to us. It got better later on and our “love” was really tested…..To it being just plain cringeworthy…..
They sound great! I love how Simon plays, he’s got more stage presence than Steve and less gain so his sound is cleaner. @11 I don’t agree about Steve Morse being too good for the music he played in Purple. Purple helped make him a better player, performer, and songwriter. Although he worked with Kansas, Steve was mainly known for writing instrumentals and writing with Purple helped bring out areas in his playing that weren’t always present before. I miss him but love that Simon is now part of the band, the obvious fire in his playing should hopefully make for exciting songs.
March 15th, 2023 at 01:15To each their own…. I think Deep Purple still sound great!
March 15th, 2023 at 03:50They are not as good as they were 10 years ago or 20 or 30! But I enjoy every second of seeing them live until they never play again.
I don’t watch shows with my arms folded watching for every mistake and second guessing how the guitar player,keyboards missed a note or played it wrong?Hmm how do you play your own song wrong but that’s for another debate. the singer changed the words well who wrote it! I watch shows to enjoy the music and vibe of the crowd! If you just have a crowd that just sits there like they’re at an orchestra it gets boring. Chair people. Pffft.
While I still prefer Steve, personally, Simon is growing on me. I do like his energy, and stage presence, but I think I still prefer Steve’s creativity – I actually liked the fact that Steve went for sounds and ideas that are outside the norm of the Purple sound, and brought in a breath of fresh air, versus sounding more like Blackmore, which Simon does.
If we could have both of them in the band, that would be amazing, but I know it can’t happen right now.
I absolutely love the current energy of the band – I think my only criticism aside from wishing Simon was more creative/risk taking in his playing, is that Big Ian is struggling to hit notes that were in his range over a year ago – not the high screaming stuff, but actual melodies to songs.
In the last year or so, Ian now cannot sing Highway Star on pitch anymore, for some reason, and you can hear him struggling and his voice straining to sing it – if he can’t sing the G above middle C anymore consistently (and that is the main note in HS in terms of the melody), I honestly think it might be time for vocal lessons – it’s only going to get worse with age, unfortunately.
His range has dropped from tenor to baritone in the last twenty years or so – and I’m quite worried it could go from baritone to bass if Ian is not careful. I say all of this as a fan of the band and a professional musician/singer in a band myself who’s concerned by what he’s seeing.
March 21st, 2023 at 08:29Purple should do the sensible thing: Tune down and/or change keys. Yes, key changes can change the character of a song, but a decent song works in more than one key (I work with a baritone singer so I know). And in the standard Purple live audience, the amount of listeners with perfect pitch is negligible (I certainly don’t have it). Even Child in Time could be resurrected if Ian simply came to realize that 95% of his audience don’t give a damn if he sings it in the original key and then still hits all the notes, they simply want to be flooded with nostalgia reliving that song no matter what key.
There is no shame in down-tuning, everyone does it, especially contemporaries in the same age group as Purple. If Simon and Roger used two half-steps down-tuned guitars/basses for Highway Star as the intro song, they could play everything exactly the same, yet Ian could sing the song in a comfortable F rather than the original G. And, yes, Simon and Roger have enough stage hands to then be handed a guitar/bass with regular tuning for the next song within seconds while Don doodles something.
Big Ian is a proud man, I believe it’s ironically him who objects to down-tuning the most. But I like to hear him sing in whatever range puts the least strain on his voice. Ian Gillan, “the silver-throated screamer” was great in the 70ies, but I’ve grown to like his senior citizen’s midrange too. He has an endearing, story-telling , unaffected tone.
Coverdale ruined his voice to a brittle shadow of its former gloriously rich self by singing against his declining range for decades, I don’t want to see that happen to Gillan too. We should start a down-tuning petition!
March 21st, 2023 at 15:49@21
Uwe, I agree that changing keys and downtuning are part of the solution, but not the only part. Purple have been changing keys for years now to fit Ian’s voice – Perfect Strangers or Battle Rages On are good examples, and there are lots of others (Knocking at Your Back Door, for instance). I’ve noticed that even on the stuff from the last two albums, he’s having trouble singing notes in the upper ranges of the melodies – Fs, Es, and yes Gs above middle C, which he should be able to get comfortably as a baritone, but can’t – this has all been happening within the last year or so – if you watch videos pre-pandemic, he’s fine.
But downtuning doesn’t address the elephant in the room – the fact that because Ian has never taken formal singing lessons (which he has admitted to on more than one occasion) means he doesn’t have the mechanics and skills needed to address an aging voice, doesn’t warm up before hitting the stage, plus the nodes that got removed from his vocal chords in the eighties, plus all the drinking and smoking and his aging, have all affected his voice to its detriment.
He deserves a vocal coach, someone who specializes in restoring the voices of older rock stars – and yes they are out there – who can work with him on restoring his voice and getting him in good vocal health, which he is not in currently – if he can’t comfortably hit the E, F or G above middle C, and this happening multiple times during a show, that is a sign that something is seriously off.
It doesn’t mean he’ll get his old range back if he takes lessons, I mean getting some of it back might be possible, but it will mean he’ll be able to sing in ways that are free, healthy and without stress and tension and adapted to his range.
The last thing any of us would want is for what happened to David Coverdale to happen to Ian, and I can hear that finally beginning to happen in his voice,, just manifesting in a different way – unfortunately, the previous decisions he made in his life seem to have caught up with him. He needs a good vocal coach to prevent Coverdale’s fate from taking place any further – when you’re young, you can get away with not having lessons if you have a stellar voice, which Ian did.
But add in the nodes, the smoking, the drinking, the aging- and all of those things change your body, and Ian deserves someone who can help him navigate his body and his voice as it is now, give him a good solid foundation from which to sing in his older body and get him in the best possible vocal shape there is. He is not in the same body as he was at 22, and its okay to ask for help.
As a baritone myself, I’m having to learn to proper technique to get into my upper mid range comfortably or even tenor range so that I don’t strain and hurt my voice long term (it is doable if you learn good vocal technique and have a solid foundation), and it is tough – and I’m only 37! There is no shame in asking for help, and I hope Ian will come to some sort of realization and seek it out. My two cents, and that’s the last I’ll say on it, other than I’m very concerned by what I’m seeing and hearing from recent live shows.
March 22nd, 2023 at 07:14Everything you wrote is very good advice, Mike. Ian didn’t really take care of his natural resource during his career and there have always been off nights and periods with him, whether it was 70ies Purple, Gillan, Black Sabbath or reunited Purple. He always seemed to take it as a given which for a 77-year-old it simply can’t be anymore.
March 27th, 2023 at 14:02