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.
Pawed by Mott The Dog
Remastered by Ella Crew
E-mail: review@mott-the-dog.com
