Deep Purple
Phoenix Rising

The best live rock band ever seen and heard obviously enjoys a vast live discography. This album, released in 2011, had not yet been covered in this space, so it's up to yours truly to fill this small gap.

The lineup in question is the fourth (“mark IV”) in the endless career, still ongoing, of the tenacious London band. Alongside the founding fathers, brothers-in-law Jon Lord on keyboards and Ian Paice behind the drums, this occasion features singer David Coverdale, bassist and singer Glenn Hughes, and the last new member at the time, American Tommy Bolin on guitar.

The tracklist makes this album at least appealing even for those who already possess live gems such as “Made in Japan” and so on in their collection. Alongside the inevitable “Smoke on the Water” and “Lazy” (from “Machine Head,” mark II) and the well-known “Burn” (from “Burn,” mark III) and “Stormbringer” (from “Stormbringer,” also mark III), you can listen to three tracks from the then recent “Come Taste the Band,” debut and simultaneously the studio epitaph of the present mark IV. As the cherry on top comes the eighth piece “Homeward Strut,” an instrumental excerpt from Bolin's solo album “Teaser,” released around the same period.

The year is 1976, the tour is logically the chaotic “Come Taste the Band.” Three recordings come from a couple of concerts at Long Beach near Los Angeles, the other five all from… Japan (again!), who knows in which cities.

For the many aficionados, it's an opportunity to primarily check the impact of the wild horse Tommy Bolin on the musical and stylistic balance of the quintet: indeed, Tommy's wavering, gritty, immensely talented, vibrant, undisciplined, and decidedly personal guitar is a strong novelty compared to the equally brilliant but more structured Blackmore. The foundations of the pieces are therefore held firmly by the two veterans Paice and Lord, solid and perfect like no others.

The other three young fellows, not just Bolin then, mess around whenever they can according to their own character; starting with the exuberant Hughes who screams his lungs out here and there, with Coverdale trying to imitate him, inevitably in a lower tone. Even the bass, for Pete's sake, can be heard in Korea at the Japanese concerts or in San Francisco at the others. As for Bolin, I repeat: he was an anarchic, somewhat genius guitarist, certainly fantastic on good nights and disastrous on bad ones. Due to his artistic makeup, he couldn't repeat a riff more than twice in the same way, so in the almost always well-crafted music created by the Glover/Blackmore duo, he felt an urgent need to deviate, vary, embellish, and experiment.

And it's a wonderful listen... at least on the nights captured by this album and despite the excessive antics of the always controversial Hughes... Fortunately, the two “oldsters” keep the course steady. Paice is the best rock drummer ever after Bonham, doesn't miss a beat, has a beautiful sound, a perfect “drive,” a magnificent peculiarity; it's a joy to follow him with your ear. The late Lord is a “progressive” gentleman who converted to hard rock; he has no idea how to create a framework for a heavy rock genre song but, once proposed to him, the way he fits his fat and gritty Hammond in there is unmatched. The best! Unparalleled sounds and performances that have made history.

I've seen the Purple in concert three times; once with mark II, once with mark VII, and finally with mark VIII, the penultimate: always overwhelming, powerful, and… swinging, with humor and fun. Having some of their live albums at home seems to me the minimum, even for those who greatly prefer studio works. There is always added value in them, particularly the ability not to rigidly adhere to their own scores and to capture the essence of rock'n'roll, though with a virtuosic level of musical ability.