Kafcaloudes Deep Purple From 1984

Every Album, Every Song
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-78952-217-4
Verlag: Sonicbond Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 160 Seiten

Reihe: On Track

In 2024, Deep Purple celebrated the fortieth anniversary of their reunion by releasing their 23rd album, =1. Some band members thought the 1984 reunion would fizzle out after one album, but it flourished despite internecine strife, illness and the loss of two founders in Richie Blackmore and Jon Lord. As other members approached eighty years of age, they still succeeded in producing albums that were to be among their most successful.
This book tells this sometimes bizarre post-reunion story through their music and, to an extent, their touring. Neither was always completely successful, as the band seemed to be either searching for synergy in their sound or for a commercial product that did not sacrifice artistic integrity. The lyrics are especially valuable because they reveal the hardship of the road and insights into their own growing frustrations with society. In doing this, the band has not just resurfaced but written a new story for a new audience.
All these things make this phase of Deep Purple an interesting study, not just of a band loved by so many but also of musicians who just wanted to play their music and sometimes found that it was not quite as simple as that.

Phil Kafcaloudes is an author and journalist who was an arts editor at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, reviewing music, theatre and film. He presented the ABC's international breakfast program for nine years, interviewing James Bonds and rock stars as well as presidents and prime ministers. In 2011, his novel Someone Else's War was published in Australasia and translated into Greek for Europe. His adaptation of the novel was shortlisted for the Cooper Prize for Playwriting and had its first public performance in 2024. He plays drums and bass, although not nearly as well as the people he writes about.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kafcaloudes, Phil

Leseproben

Chapter 2

Perfect Strangers Live 1984 (2013)

Personnel

Ian Gillan: vocals

Richie Blackmore: guitars

Jon Lord: keyboards

Roger Glover: bass

Ian Paice: drums and percussion

Record label: Eagle Vision

Recorded at Melbourne Sports & Entertainment Centre, Australia, on 18 December 1984

Produced by Roger Glover/Deep Purple

Release date: 11 October 2013

Highest chart places: Germany: 20, Austria: 53

Running time: 100.00

Album Facts

In November 1984, only six months after the announcement of the reunion, the Mk II band was in New Zealand for the start of its first tour in 11 years before moving to Perth in Western Australia, then Sydney and Melbourne.

This album, released 30 years after its recording, documents this live DP rebirth and does it in a grand way as a double CD and a DVD video album, making this a visual as well as an aural document of the band performing early in the reunion.

Tour manager Colin Hart told the author that touring in 1984 was much bigger than it had been in 1973, and Lord told Kerrang’s Geoff Barton he insisted on some touring changes:

In 1972, we were on the road non-stop for 44 weeks. I never want to have to experience that kind of pressure again. I remember saying, ‘OK, if we do it, let’s do one thing, let’s make sure that we take our time. Let’s do a gig and have a day off. Even if it becomes a financially insecure exercise, fuck it, let’s do it that way’.

Clearly, the lesson was not learned because, despite Lord’s insistence on time off, the tour got increasingly booked up, repeating the same burnout risk as before. One can see how this happened. Ticket sales were so big that DP would become the second-highest-grossing touring act in the US that year.

Hart told the author that it got to the stage where Gillan and Lord started bucking against the load. But early on, when this set was recorded, things were handled more generously to the band, with shows staggered with (mostly) on and off days.

The material on this set was all recorded at a single concert at the Melbourne Sports & Entertainment Centre, which had been the swimming arena for the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games. The concert had just followed a huge selling three days in Sydney, during which former Beatle George Harrison had joined them onstage for a version of Little Richard’s Lucille. The author was at that concert and remembers Gillan introducing Harrison as ‘Arnold from Liverpool’ to an audience who seemed to take a while to recognise the ex-Beatle. Harrison later told Jonathan Graham that the decision to appear was so impromptu that he was ‘playing the wrong key, but it didn’t seem to matter.’ Such was the bonhomie of the times. There was so much of it, in fact, that Blackmore was to tell Dave Ling in 1987 that it was only during this Australian tour that he realised the reunion was going to work.

Although they look fit and are full of energy, Gillan’s voice does get tired (Blackmore would later tell Jerry Bloom that Gillan’s voice would typically last only about a week on tour), and some songs are played so furiously that band members are often drenched in sweat. And there were moments of tension onstage. On New, Live & Rare: The Video Collection, as the band performs ‘Black Night’ at one of the Sydney concerts, Glover approaches Blackmore, who appears to be having a technical issue, but Blackmore gruffly gestures Glover to get away from him. That bonhomie was obviously already fragile.

Perfect Strangers Live was marginally more successful on release in 1991 than the recording of their concert at Knebworth, which was taped and released early in the reunion (In The Absence Of Pink, Live At Knebworth 1984), charting in both Austria and Germany, but nowhere else.

Album Cover

Although this album was released in 2013, the cover was obviously designed to pay homage to Perfect Strangers, with the album name in the red 1984 font. Across the front top is a blue monochrome band image, and under the album and band name is a stage shot of Gillan mid-prance with a microphone stand as Blackmore appears to be in the middle of soloing. The back cover is equally dark, with another photo that could have been taken either shortly before or after the image on the front. Above a track listing, there is a seven- line liner note by English music journalist Malcolm Dome that heralds the reunion. The booklet starts with a red two-page spread of a stage shot of Gillan on the left and Blackmore on the right, but it’s an image that seems more Black Sabbath than DP. The notes in the booklet are full of superlatives, including ‘astonishing’, ‘incredible’, ‘surreal’ and ‘another universe’. We know all that.

All tracks by Blackmore, Gillan, Glover, Lord and Paice (unless otherwise noted)

‘Highway Star’

Right from this opening number, the band shows that this reunion is about unfinished business. They show the same energy they had back in the early 1970s and then some. The song is faster than the original, and they all attack it with a busyness that might be a bit too much for the song but is a statement of intent, right from Glover’s eighth-note bass line and Paice’s uncharacteristic showmanship, flailing his arms in a way more Keith Moon than Ian Paice. Gillan, in tight leather pants and a shirtless vest, is having a great time while having trouble getting every word out at this higher tempo. Gillan sings along with Blackmore’s guitar solo, and Blackmore appears to enjoy the interaction. At several points, Gillan double fists at the Melbourne audience and laughs. Yes, we are back, he could be saying, and no, this is not going to be a pallid greatest hits tour.

‘Nobody’s Home’

There is no speed ramping on this version of one of their dirtiest new rock songs. Gillan plays with the lyrics a little, making it more aggressive than the recording of only a few months before. Blackmore commands this song though, even using his elbow on the strings. This makes two fiery songs in a row to reintroduce the band to their fans. A mid-tempo number is probably called for now.

‘Strange Kind Of Woman’

And it comes in this bluesy hit from 1971. Again, Blackmore offers up very busy solos as though he’d been storing them up. He once again trades lines with Gillan, and there certainly are great moments of camaraderie with Blackmore offering up the ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ theme for Gillan (who sang as Jesus on the original 1970 British recording). They laugh together, and then Blackmore goes into ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and looks to Gillan, who doesn’t take the bait this time (perhaps he didn’t get the reference or know the words. His shake of the head could suggest either). There is a mistake at the start of the second verse, where Gillan thought they were headed into an instrumental break, but this song is such an example of classic DP improvisation that this was probably never noticed by the screamers in the audience.

‘A Gypsy’s Kiss’ (Blackmore, Gillan, Glover)

Now, things slow right down. Blackmore improvises over some subtle Lord organ work in a 52-second jam. Then, suddenly, this switches into the fast rock of ‘A Gypsy’s Kiss’ led by Lord’s wall of keyboards. We are only four songs into the set, but Gillan’s voice is starting to sound strained. He tries his best to give the audience his highs, but he either can’t get there or thinks better than trying to attempt it. It’s no wonder. Despite spacing the dates more than in the 1970s, the tour has already traversed Perth, Adelaide, Auckland, Canberra, Brisbane and three consecutive dates in Sydney before the three nights in Melbourne. A racing number like this seems to be a bridge too far for the singer at this point. It seems Lord had a point with his complaints about crammed touring.

‘Perfect Strangers’ (Blackmore, Gillan, Glover)

There is some respite in this, the new single. After a short time offstage while Lord goes through his synth introduction, Gillan returns with a fresh voice to deliver what would be one of his better performances in this concert (except for a few coughs and his missing a couple of lines). Overall, it’s a solid performance from the band in a song that would become a live staple for the next 40 years.

‘Under The Gun’ (Blackmore, Gillan, Glover)

The pace ramps up again for this guitar hero track. Blackmore and Glover are in a tight synchronisation, only breaking away from each other in the two guitar solos. The second solo, in particular, is a sterling effort by Blackmore, who slams his guitar on a monitor and finishes crouched on the drum riser.

For all these histrionics, he barely misses a note.

‘Knocking At Your Back Door’ (Blackmore, Gillan, Glover)

The start is note-perfect from the recorded version, if a little more subdued, but this gives Gillan a chance to play with the lyrics. Glover lays down an interesting bass line...