5 Stars *****
By the end of 1988 the Deep Purple camp was once again
in disarray, the concerts in early 1988 had been very successful
musically, in fact amongst some of Purple’s best ever, but socially they
found it hard to all be in the same room together, especially Ritchie
Blackmore and Ian Gillan.
As a new album was needed and an agreement could not be
reached on a musical direction, Blackmore claimed that they needed to move
forward musically and Gillan claimed the band was going in the opposite
direction, and becoming Rainbow. The rest of the band went to the United
States of America to record the music before sending it to Ian Gillan in
England to add lyrics and vocals, before heading out on tour, well that
was the plan. Sounds like a reasonable one to you? No, not me either, and
of course it wasn’t.
Whilst kicking his heels in England and looking for
something to do to fill in the time before the others summoned him, Ian
Gillan looked up his old mate Steve Morris to put together a band to do
some low key gigs to keep Ian’s vocal chords in practice.
The back rooms of the Cumberland Tavern in Liverpool
were hired for a couple of weeks to rehearse. Liverpool has always been a
hotbed of good old English rock ‘n’ roll, so it was not exactly a
problem to find some good solid folk to fill out the line up. From Steve
Morris’s own band “Export”, powerhouse drummer Lou Rosenthal and
solid rhythm guitarist Harry Shaw were recruited (people always
underestimate rhythm guitarist in my view, but where would Humble Pie and
Status Quo have been without the pile driving rhythms of Steve Marriot or
Rick Parfitt?). Then with the talented young keyboard player Mark Buckle,
formerly of heavy metal revivalists “Quest”, and the bass playing
abilities of Keith Mulholland from the late lamented “Rage” on board,
Mr. Ian Gillan had got himself an astonishing new band of almost limitless
talents.
A set was put together, noticeably not including any
Deep Purple songs, but pulling songs from Ian Gillan’s previous enforced
break from the Purple ranks when he recorded several albums and toured the
world with his hard rocking own band “Gillan,” including probably the
best songs from that band’s roster, the hard rocking and hilarious ‘No
Laughing in Heaven’, as well as other old favorites ranging from covers
of old Little Feat numbers (Let it Roll) the Stevie Wonder Classic (Living
for the City), one from Cliff Bennett (Ain’t That Loving You Baby) and
probably the artistic highlight of this collection with an absolutely
spine chilling version of ‘Ain’t No More Cane On The Brazos’ - a
song from the deep south of America at the turn of the century, but
popularized by Lonnie Donegan in the 1950’s.
Tacked onto this album is another version of this song
with the audience noise cut out, plus another version on Ian Gillan’s
next solo album “Naked Thunder’. Never has the Gillan vocals been put
to finer use, in all his work since or before he has never bettered this
performance.
Also in the set are a couple of songs from the album
that Ian Gillan did with his old Purple running mate Roger Glover called
“Accidentally on Purpose”, another album well worth looking out for
(“I Thought No’’ and “I Can’t Dance to That’’). Then
finishing up with a brace of rock ‘n’ roll classics in ‘New
Orleans’ and Lucille, where the band are let off the leash to simply
rock their little hearts out.
After seven very enjoyable gigs in the North of
England, Ian Gillan went across to America to sort out the Purple
situation and was promptly fired for having the audacity to criticize the
work of a certain Mr. Blackmore, so Purple replaced Gillan with Joe Lynn
Turner (noticeably Rainbow’s last frontman) to tour and record their
next album ‘Slaves and Masters’. Although a good rock album, it is no
Deep Purple record and their appearance in Bangkok in 1991 was nothing
short of a disgrace.
Ian Gillan went back to England and did a short tour of
Britain under his new name of Garth Rockett with his backup band The
Moonshiners, from which these recordings were culled, and very exciting
they are too. Finally released on CD twelve years later, they show what an
excellent band they were, perhaps if Ian Gillan had kept them together who
knows?
But it was not to be as Ian went back into the studio
to record a couple of solo albums, only keeping Steve Morris with him for
recording and touring (The aforementioned ‘Naked Thunder’ plus
‘Toolbox’ - both fine albums) before the call came back out from
Purple to re-join them for the “Battle Rages on” album and tour which
he did, but after more animosity it was Ritchie Blackmore that left,
leaving Ian Gillan leading Deep Purple from the front to this day, as was
seen in their triumphant return to Bangkok last year at the Impact Arena.
This live recording, though, is a great example of a
bunch of experienced musicians putting on a good show as well as having a
good time, well worth your hard earned shilling.
by Lang Reid
I
watched ‘American Pie One’ under protest and fell off my seat
laughing. I enjoyed the second movie as much if not more. With ‘American
Wedding’ I fully expected the same enjoyment but I have to admit to
being dismally disappointed.
Mott’s CD review:
by Mott the Dog