DEEP PURPLE
"New Live & Rare" (DVD)
Thames
5/5
David Lee Wilson
Bootleggers/Tape traders have been stung hard by this one as it collects all the juiciest of DEEP PURPLE's video output since the Mark II reunion of '84. What is more is that each of the disc's 27 video slices presented is crystal clear in both vision and sound making me, I mean, the bootleggers damned pissed they spent all those years collecting the grainy sixth generation copies of this stuff on VHS.
The first nine tracks feature the reformed eighties version of DEEP PURPLE MK II and show how a group that started in the mid-sixties could not only be relevant in a time beyond their own but every bit the trailblazers they ever were. The general public may have favored the fashion sense of WHAM! and DURAN DURAN but nothing could touch the intangible cool of the guys in PURPLE and this is why the video's for "Perfect Strangers" and "Knocking at your back Door" became MTV staples. Surpassing all Hard Rocking contemporaries in visibility the DEEP PURPLE reunion of the eighties inspired any band that ever had a hit to reform and take a run at the ring but no one ever matched the group's success in terms of sales or artistic credibility. Sadly, by the time of "Bad Attitude" and "Call of the Wild" PURPLE was on the brink of another breakup and it was left to former RAINBOW singer Joe Lynn Turner to lead the group into the nineties.
Now Joe Lynn Turner wasn't the favorite of many a DEEP PURPLE fan but for my money the group produced their best work since '74 with him, "SLAVES AND MASTERS," and here are two videos from that short lived lineup, "King of Dreams" and "Love Conquers All." As far as "rare" studio produced, videos and DEEP PURPLE go these are the Holy Grail items to fans because they were rarely aired. "Love Conquers All" was never aired to my knowledge due to its use of a nude model, and is only now available here in unedited form.
A year or so after Turner stepped in he stepped out to facilitate the return of Ian Gillan. Unfortunately, there is nothing here from this period, which was to be the last for the classic MK II lineup. Skipping forward past Ritchie Blackmore's hissy fit and subsequent exit from the group and you have the rarest of live snippets from DEEP PURPLE as they are today.
After their final live record with Blackmore DEEP PURPLE is effectively releasing records by themselves sans any international conglomerate and therefore less than interested in spending the kind of dough that making a glossy MTV styled video entails so it is all live cuts that you get from here to the end. It is current six-stringer Steve Morse who incites the air-guitar tributes each night on stage and for eleven of the remaining cuts you are invited to witness Morse and PURPLE unbound and unhinged. Everything is here too, "Lazy," Smoke on the Water," (from an appearance on an Aussie video show performing along with a studio full of riffing contest winners) Speed King" as well as rarely or never performed gems like, "When a blind man Cries." This is all prime-PURPLE and evidence of a group that will likely roll on until core members start dieing en mass. Check out "Fools" from the Montreaux Jazz Festival in 2000 with all sparks and fire of anything PURPLE has ever committed to tape and this with Steve Morse still sporting a cast on his fretting hand!
There are three "bonus" tracks, (god I hate the use of the term "bonus" when every single copy has the material!), including "Under the Gun" from the 1984 sessions that produced the "Perfect Strangers" video, "Hush" live at the House of Blues and some incredible studio footage from the making of the previously mentioned Joe Lynne Turner fronted "SLAVES AND MASTERS" disc. The latter also features "Fire, Ice & Dynamite" which has never been officially released before now. The boots have been beaten thanks to DVD technology but there is more out there that needs to be committed to this format including MK I material and maybe some of the shows where Joe Satriani is sitting in for Blackmore before the arrival of Steve Morse. If the powers that be at DEEP PURPLE central are listening, How's 'bout a regular series of "NEW LIVE & RARE" each featuring 183 minutes or so of crystalline PURPLE video like this one?
"New Live & Rare" (DVD)
Thames
5/5
David Lee Wilson
Bootleggers/Tape traders have been stung hard by this one as it collects all the juiciest of DEEP PURPLE's video output since the Mark II reunion of '84. What is more is that each of the disc's 27 video slices presented is crystal clear in both vision and sound making me, I mean, the bootleggers damned pissed they spent all those years collecting the grainy sixth generation copies of this stuff on VHS.
The first nine tracks feature the reformed eighties version of DEEP PURPLE MK II and show how a group that started in the mid-sixties could not only be relevant in a time beyond their own but every bit the trailblazers they ever were. The general public may have favored the fashion sense of WHAM! and DURAN DURAN but nothing could touch the intangible cool of the guys in PURPLE and this is why the video's for "Perfect Strangers" and "Knocking at your back Door" became MTV staples. Surpassing all Hard Rocking contemporaries in visibility the DEEP PURPLE reunion of the eighties inspired any band that ever had a hit to reform and take a run at the ring but no one ever matched the group's success in terms of sales or artistic credibility. Sadly, by the time of "Bad Attitude" and "Call of the Wild" PURPLE was on the brink of another breakup and it was left to former RAINBOW singer Joe Lynn Turner to lead the group into the nineties.
Now Joe Lynn Turner wasn't the favorite of many a DEEP PURPLE fan but for my money the group produced their best work since '74 with him, "SLAVES AND MASTERS," and here are two videos from that short lived lineup, "King of Dreams" and "Love Conquers All." As far as "rare" studio produced, videos and DEEP PURPLE go these are the Holy Grail items to fans because they were rarely aired. "Love Conquers All" was never aired to my knowledge due to its use of a nude model, and is only now available here in unedited form.
A year or so after Turner stepped in he stepped out to facilitate the return of Ian Gillan. Unfortunately, there is nothing here from this period, which was to be the last for the classic MK II lineup. Skipping forward past Ritchie Blackmore's hissy fit and subsequent exit from the group and you have the rarest of live snippets from DEEP PURPLE as they are today.
After their final live record with Blackmore DEEP PURPLE is effectively releasing records by themselves sans any international conglomerate and therefore less than interested in spending the kind of dough that making a glossy MTV styled video entails so it is all live cuts that you get from here to the end. It is current six-stringer Steve Morse who incites the air-guitar tributes each night on stage and for eleven of the remaining cuts you are invited to witness Morse and PURPLE unbound and unhinged. Everything is here too, "Lazy," Smoke on the Water," (from an appearance on an Aussie video show performing along with a studio full of riffing contest winners) Speed King" as well as rarely or never performed gems like, "When a blind man Cries." This is all prime-PURPLE and evidence of a group that will likely roll on until core members start dieing en mass. Check out "Fools" from the Montreaux Jazz Festival in 2000 with all sparks and fire of anything PURPLE has ever committed to tape and this with Steve Morse still sporting a cast on his fretting hand!
There are three "bonus" tracks, (god I hate the use of the term "bonus" when every single copy has the material!), including "Under the Gun" from the 1984 sessions that produced the "Perfect Strangers" video, "Hush" live at the House of Blues and some incredible studio footage from the making of the previously mentioned Joe Lynne Turner fronted "SLAVES AND MASTERS" disc. The latter also features "Fire, Ice & Dynamite" which has never been officially released before now. The boots have been beaten thanks to DVD technology but there is more out there that needs to be committed to this format including MK I material and maybe some of the shows where Joe Satriani is sitting in for Blackmore before the arrival of Steve Morse. If the powers that be at DEEP PURPLE central are listening, How's 'bout a regular series of "NEW LIVE & RARE" each featuring 183 minutes or so of crystalline PURPLE video like this one?
