On October 16th, 1993 The Schleyerhalle in Stuttgart was the venue for
the last ever German gig of Deep Purple featuring Ritchie Blackmore. I'm
not aware of very many British rock 'n' rollers who are as "pro-German"
as Ritchie is ("I guess it's because I like to take side of the nation who looses"
- he's reported to have said once), so counting on the fact that that
it was to be his last ever gig with DP in his beloved country - he fell
in the mood bright enough to close this chapter of his touring career
with a truly resonating blast.
Prior to coming down to Stuttgart, Purple were pretty well oiled by the previous 12 German gigs. Their musicianship was widely "ranging from rock to roll", with couple of dready affairs but also some highlights (especially the show in Grugahalle Essen, where for the first time in their career the band hit the mark of one show longer than 130 minutes on stage), displaying an immense amount of "perfect balance between the discipline and improvisation" as Jon Lord would later on describe it to the press.
Personal aspect of the band inner condition was, however, a totally different affair. The RCA company bribed the band members of Lord, Paice and Glover to take opposite corner to Blackmore in regard of who should sing on their 25th anniversary album and tour. Reportedly a stated threat not to release what became the album "The Battle Rages On" if it's not one certain vocalist is being employed again, thwarted the opposition even in the Man In Black. The proceedings resulted in third engaging of Ian Gillan to the band and launching the band on a ride of yet another trainwrecking clash of personalities - evergoing between Gillan and Blackmore. Despite the fact of the album being received with mixed reviews from both press and fans alike, the new generation of rock fans was excited with prospect of the treat to see the legendary Mk II live on tour again. The US leg of the tour flopped and never came to fruition, but with the September on the cards the band hit the road in Europe - reaching Germany just two weeks after the tour start.
With over fifteen shows under their belt before mid-October, the pressure of the "empty hearts and icy stares" on the Blackmore - Gillan line was palpable. It's been wittnessed before however that nothing does the Purple musical camarderie as much good as the personal tension edging physical fight. The tendency to be trying to blow the enemy off the stage with unrivalled performance, combined with enthusiastic and sometimes extatic reaction of the audience - brought the bar of the top notch quality performances for Blackmore and Gillan alike, with ever reliable Lord, Glover and Paice following the vicious two seamlessly. They scored their absolute peak of their mighty abilities right there in Stuttgart, rightly 20 years ago.
The concert, that now can be wittnessed in it's entirety on official releases - finds the band in a way above and beyond anything that they had experienced prior or after to that night. The balance ofd the ripping power, energy and dexterity of playing meshed up with knobbing the intensity of the voulme, sound contrasts and space for improvisation, mood changes and simply having fun and enjoying rock 'n' roll in truly glorius proportions, is just mesmerising.
The highlights during the set are more than aplenty. The audience mood and ability to participate in the flow of excitement is nicely tested in "Black Night" singalong right after opening the show with roaring take of "Highway Star". Prior to the audience passing it's exam in flying colours - Blackmore delivers first of the few once-in-a-lifetime solos of his for that night. Beginning with a nasty tremolo sustained phrase, he throbbles the fretboard up with fingers scratching up the strings and proceeds on to couple of bars where the sky-high melodic finds the strings almost being ripped out the neck. Before the audience takes over with singing the riff, he plays couple of ultra beatiful semi-accoustic licks sounding almost like unused riffs. This is orgasmic.
Before the Bethoveen's Ninth excercise Ritchie takes the band to the two-and-a-half minute jam combining "The Mule" riff with the BBC outtake "Grabsplatter" tempo. Both of these hasn't been played by the band since seventies. The flow of this version prompts Lord to come with a truly majestic solo spot after which "Knocking At Your Backdoor" follows, unleashing (yet and again) another tidal wave of Ritchie's genius.
After the call-response with Lord in the standard middle solo for the track - he stops the band down for an improvisation beginning with flowingly beatiful semi-accoustic solo played in electric mode. Then again he carries out again a dialogue of guitar and organ with Jon and concludes the suprise spot off with a concrete ripping closure of amazingly aggressive electric lead solo. This idea pennes the ultimate live arrangement of this song that no other set of musicians ever could replicate effectively with such an mesmerising effect.
"Child In Time" (welcomed by audience with a tidal wave of cheer) finds Blackmore introducing the solo spot with nicking the bars from Lord and having them played in beatiful mode with slide. The improvisation finds Ritchie and Jon chasing off each other for couple of minutes. Each one gets bits of a sensational show-off, they talk phrases between and over each other - ending playing improvised scapes in perfect unison together. Hard to hang on to one's head on hearing this, and there's no better example than this thing to play if you need to justify someone why the combination of Blackmore's Fender and Lord's Hammond organ is unrivalled anywhere in rock 'n' roll world.
To save Gillan's voice after the stretch of "Child In Time" the track is thought to conclude with a keyboard-guitar bridge leading in the band to tour-de-force culled of from the new album. "Anya", the last rocker of this kind of might ever penned by Purple - with it's genuine riff - here rises to monumental status. Ticking at over 12 minutes - it finds Blackmore in yet another blessing of being touched by the uncomparable heights of inspiration. The Man In Black drives the song like a director conducting the orchestra: testing the skills of guitar harmonizer at first, then bringing the band down to own the stage for another breathy semi-accoustic showcase on his very own. After tunning the notes down to the silence of pin drop tink being audible - he picks up the driving pace back to lead the Purple steamroller to the frenzy finale, after which no corpse is capable to hold it's head on. They just rip it up - in and out.
Being faithful to the Hitchcock's rule of "first let the house of block go down to rumble and then the tension should rise" - the reminder of the show is killingly electifying. "Lazy" simply dazzles with guitar bursting out and shredding to pieces anything on the way of Ritchie's fingers. Prior to the "Space Truckin' Medley" the whole band segues into a couple of minutes of node-to-Grieg cover of "The Hall Of The Mountain King". And it's not just Blackmore doodling one of his favourite tunes between his nose and the amp's surface. It's a fully throttled, uprising instrumental played by entire band, with Blackers kicking the volume and intensity up and up. Stunning.
It must have been hard for the audience to let them leave the stage. It must have been hard to imagine that the encores might bring in anything that will blow off the gig up-to-then skyscraper quality. But hey, this is Blackmore and Deep Purple clearly willing to laugh you off at your doubts.
The re-endition of "Speed King" that they deliver is simply of one-time-in-the-history-of-the-universe. Starts off with the German anthem introduction, verses go down like couple of TNT bars lit up and blasted. After that both Ritchie and Jon share another round of trading licks like two hungry werewolves on the-die-is-cast tour. When enough is enough, Blackmore tones the band down and drags Lord to follow him to another suprise improvised semi-accoustic section where they battle and share the melodic lines at the same time, fooling around the "Teddy Bear's Picnic" motive... Got a smoked-up mind already? So how about throwing in a "Burn" riff for a good measure to smash you up a bit more? Seven-half minute of a Purple wet-dream, too good to disbelieve that they did it that well.
Blackmore's idea to fool around with light and shade was already then known as a trademark of his. During this tour he developed a habit of playing astonishingly beatiful, melodic semi-accoustic guitar introduction to "Smoke On The Water"completely wrapping up audience's concentration for two-three minutes. The trick of abrupting it to open the stove to 10 and blast up the "Smoke..." riff right after this received the power of life threatenning effect, addidtionally sending the spectators to the sky high frenzy within seconds. And so they all blast the hall up here, delivering another breathaking performance - the very last of this magical night.
This show also remains iconic for being outstanding in terms of Deep Purple high standards of delivering a masterclass live on stage (one of the best in their entire career). It is also a testimony to the fact that after that tour things were never to be as magical ever again.
Not many other live shows I know of, that I love so much to listen, tell of, cheerish so heartfeltly and recommend to any happy rocker.
DEEP PURPLE [BLACKMORE-GILLAN-GLOVER-LORD-PAICE]
Live at Hans Martin Scheyer Halle, Stuttgart
16 October 1993
THE BATTLE RAGES ON - 25TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR.
Prior to coming down to Stuttgart, Purple were pretty well oiled by the previous 12 German gigs. Their musicianship was widely "ranging from rock to roll", with couple of dready affairs but also some highlights (especially the show in Grugahalle Essen, where for the first time in their career the band hit the mark of one show longer than 130 minutes on stage), displaying an immense amount of "perfect balance between the discipline and improvisation" as Jon Lord would later on describe it to the press.
Personal aspect of the band inner condition was, however, a totally different affair. The RCA company bribed the band members of Lord, Paice and Glover to take opposite corner to Blackmore in regard of who should sing on their 25th anniversary album and tour. Reportedly a stated threat not to release what became the album "The Battle Rages On" if it's not one certain vocalist is being employed again, thwarted the opposition even in the Man In Black. The proceedings resulted in third engaging of Ian Gillan to the band and launching the band on a ride of yet another trainwrecking clash of personalities - evergoing between Gillan and Blackmore. Despite the fact of the album being received with mixed reviews from both press and fans alike, the new generation of rock fans was excited with prospect of the treat to see the legendary Mk II live on tour again. The US leg of the tour flopped and never came to fruition, but with the September on the cards the band hit the road in Europe - reaching Germany just two weeks after the tour start.
With over fifteen shows under their belt before mid-October, the pressure of the "empty hearts and icy stares" on the Blackmore - Gillan line was palpable. It's been wittnessed before however that nothing does the Purple musical camarderie as much good as the personal tension edging physical fight. The tendency to be trying to blow the enemy off the stage with unrivalled performance, combined with enthusiastic and sometimes extatic reaction of the audience - brought the bar of the top notch quality performances for Blackmore and Gillan alike, with ever reliable Lord, Glover and Paice following the vicious two seamlessly. They scored their absolute peak of their mighty abilities right there in Stuttgart, rightly 20 years ago.
The concert, that now can be wittnessed in it's entirety on official releases - finds the band in a way above and beyond anything that they had experienced prior or after to that night. The balance ofd the ripping power, energy and dexterity of playing meshed up with knobbing the intensity of the voulme, sound contrasts and space for improvisation, mood changes and simply having fun and enjoying rock 'n' roll in truly glorius proportions, is just mesmerising.
The highlights during the set are more than aplenty. The audience mood and ability to participate in the flow of excitement is nicely tested in "Black Night" singalong right after opening the show with roaring take of "Highway Star". Prior to the audience passing it's exam in flying colours - Blackmore delivers first of the few once-in-a-lifetime solos of his for that night. Beginning with a nasty tremolo sustained phrase, he throbbles the fretboard up with fingers scratching up the strings and proceeds on to couple of bars where the sky-high melodic finds the strings almost being ripped out the neck. Before the audience takes over with singing the riff, he plays couple of ultra beatiful semi-accoustic licks sounding almost like unused riffs. This is orgasmic.
Before the Bethoveen's Ninth excercise Ritchie takes the band to the two-and-a-half minute jam combining "The Mule" riff with the BBC outtake "Grabsplatter" tempo. Both of these hasn't been played by the band since seventies. The flow of this version prompts Lord to come with a truly majestic solo spot after which "Knocking At Your Backdoor" follows, unleashing (yet and again) another tidal wave of Ritchie's genius.
After the call-response with Lord in the standard middle solo for the track - he stops the band down for an improvisation beginning with flowingly beatiful semi-accoustic solo played in electric mode. Then again he carries out again a dialogue of guitar and organ with Jon and concludes the suprise spot off with a concrete ripping closure of amazingly aggressive electric lead solo. This idea pennes the ultimate live arrangement of this song that no other set of musicians ever could replicate effectively with such an mesmerising effect.
"Child In Time" (welcomed by audience with a tidal wave of cheer) finds Blackmore introducing the solo spot with nicking the bars from Lord and having them played in beatiful mode with slide. The improvisation finds Ritchie and Jon chasing off each other for couple of minutes. Each one gets bits of a sensational show-off, they talk phrases between and over each other - ending playing improvised scapes in perfect unison together. Hard to hang on to one's head on hearing this, and there's no better example than this thing to play if you need to justify someone why the combination of Blackmore's Fender and Lord's Hammond organ is unrivalled anywhere in rock 'n' roll world.
To save Gillan's voice after the stretch of "Child In Time" the track is thought to conclude with a keyboard-guitar bridge leading in the band to tour-de-force culled of from the new album. "Anya", the last rocker of this kind of might ever penned by Purple - with it's genuine riff - here rises to monumental status. Ticking at over 12 minutes - it finds Blackmore in yet another blessing of being touched by the uncomparable heights of inspiration. The Man In Black drives the song like a director conducting the orchestra: testing the skills of guitar harmonizer at first, then bringing the band down to own the stage for another breathy semi-accoustic showcase on his very own. After tunning the notes down to the silence of pin drop tink being audible - he picks up the driving pace back to lead the Purple steamroller to the frenzy finale, after which no corpse is capable to hold it's head on. They just rip it up - in and out.
Being faithful to the Hitchcock's rule of "first let the house of block go down to rumble and then the tension should rise" - the reminder of the show is killingly electifying. "Lazy" simply dazzles with guitar bursting out and shredding to pieces anything on the way of Ritchie's fingers. Prior to the "Space Truckin' Medley" the whole band segues into a couple of minutes of node-to-Grieg cover of "The Hall Of The Mountain King". And it's not just Blackmore doodling one of his favourite tunes between his nose and the amp's surface. It's a fully throttled, uprising instrumental played by entire band, with Blackers kicking the volume and intensity up and up. Stunning.
It must have been hard for the audience to let them leave the stage. It must have been hard to imagine that the encores might bring in anything that will blow off the gig up-to-then skyscraper quality. But hey, this is Blackmore and Deep Purple clearly willing to laugh you off at your doubts.
The re-endition of "Speed King" that they deliver is simply of one-time-in-the-history-of-the-universe. Starts off with the German anthem introduction, verses go down like couple of TNT bars lit up and blasted. After that both Ritchie and Jon share another round of trading licks like two hungry werewolves on the-die-is-cast tour. When enough is enough, Blackmore tones the band down and drags Lord to follow him to another suprise improvised semi-accoustic section where they battle and share the melodic lines at the same time, fooling around the "Teddy Bear's Picnic" motive... Got a smoked-up mind already? So how about throwing in a "Burn" riff for a good measure to smash you up a bit more? Seven-half minute of a Purple wet-dream, too good to disbelieve that they did it that well.
Blackmore's idea to fool around with light and shade was already then known as a trademark of his. During this tour he developed a habit of playing astonishingly beatiful, melodic semi-accoustic guitar introduction to "Smoke On The Water"completely wrapping up audience's concentration for two-three minutes. The trick of abrupting it to open the stove to 10 and blast up the "Smoke..." riff right after this received the power of life threatenning effect, addidtionally sending the spectators to the sky high frenzy within seconds. And so they all blast the hall up here, delivering another breathaking performance - the very last of this magical night.
This show also remains iconic for being outstanding in terms of Deep Purple high standards of delivering a masterclass live on stage (one of the best in their entire career). It is also a testimony to the fact that after that tour things were never to be as magical ever again.
Not many other live shows I know of, that I love so much to listen, tell of, cheerish so heartfeltly and recommend to any happy rocker.
DEEP PURPLE [BLACKMORE-GILLAN-GLOVER-LORD-PAICE]
Live at Hans Martin Scheyer Halle, Stuttgart
16 October 1993
THE BATTLE RAGES ON - 25TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR.
