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Thread: Deep Purple-Last concert in Japan

  1. #1

    Deep Purple-Last concert in Japan

    I believe this was the last official live release before the MK II reunion releases. Again was dissapinted it was only a single vinyl release but it did include some classics & we did get to hear a live version of Soldier of Fortune. I understand Bolin was stoned on this tour so I guess were lucky to have a live statement during his tenure in the band. Coverdale was at the top of his game. Great live singer at this point in his career!

  2. #2
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    I've heard some of this, maybe the bits on that 'History Hits and Highlights' DVD. I don't know that it ever saw a UK release...the copies I've seen have all been imports. When I watch the film from this show, it's sad. This is not a very good version of the band IMHO (all talented individuals but it just doesn't gel...nor does it do so on the studio album IMHO) and it's not a good performance either.

    This was an extraordinarily grim period for the band, they really went out with a whimper rather than a bang in their initial split in 1976. There were three 'together' members and the other two were really burning the candle at both ends. Bolin's of course sadly was burnt out completely shortly after.
    Last edited by JJ88; 08-09-2014 at 02:51 PM.

  3. #3
    Terrible. "Wild Dogs" is the only thing worthwhile, IMO. I don't think the expanded release is much better.
    "The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"

  4. #4
    I've never heard Last Concert In Japan, so I don't know how bad it is. I've heard though that it was badly mixed and edited. I remember reading reading that the track list shows Woman From Tokyo, but it's actually just Jon Lord teasing the song for about 10 seconds during a cadenza in one of the other songs. I heard the mix was actually done for a TV special that was put together after Tommy Bolin passed away, and was never actually meant to be released on an album.

    About ten years ago, they put out a double CD of the same show, called This Time Around. They remixed the tapes, and restored the show to it's full length and original running order. I thought it was rather good. And I do agree Wild Dogs was one of the best things on it.

    The problem with Deep Purple at this point is that:
    a. You had a guitarist who wasn't Ritchie Blackmore
    b. You had two full blown drug addicts in the band (Bolin and Hughes)
    c. Jon Lord and Ian Paice's hearts weren't in it anymore

    There was a comment in the Behind The Music on Deep Purple where Jon Lord said after the last Mark IV show, in the dressing room, Jon and Ian decided they'd had enough. About 20 minutes later, Coverdale comes in and announces he's quitting, and Jon says "David, there's no band to quit!".

    From what I gather, the band was up and down on that tour. Some of the shows were great, and some of them weren't. The concert that King Biscuit put out on CD in the mid 90's was is supposed to be one of the better shows, though it's been a long while since I've heard it, so I don't really remember much about it.

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    ^Lord and Paice ended up working with Coverdale again in Whitesnake, so I guess relations between those three were solid at that time. Did any of them work with Hughes again?

    I just don't feel this line-up was really a 'band', as I said. It might have become one if they'd been together longer.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by JJ88 View Post
    ^Lord and Paice ended up working with Coverdale again in Whitesnake, so I guess relations between those three were solid at that time. Did any of them work with Hughes again?
    Not sure if I've ever heard of anyone from Deep Purple working with Hughes again, though before Jon Lord passed away Glenn kept hyping this idea of getting the MKIII lineup back together, or at least he kept saying that was open to it, like he was trying to talk the other four into such a venture. I thought that was bizarre, given that all the interview footage I'd seen since the mid 90's seems to suggest you couldn't pay Lord or Paicey enough to play with Ritchie again. And of course, for a MKIII reunion to happen, they'd have had to drop the hammer on Gillian, Glover, and Morse, at least temporarily.

    And yeah, I'd imagine on whichever level, the three of them must have been able to work together, because Lord and Paicey were in Whitesnake for a few albums/tours, weren't they? I think what happened was the weight of being in Deep Purple, one of the biggest bands on the planet at the time, got to be more than they wanted. I think Jon even said once that he just got sick of being on the road forever the way they were. So maybe by the time Whitesnake rolled around, he got the "I'm sick of touring" thing out of his system, and maybe Whitesnake weren't touring quite as much as Purple were during the post Machine Head era.

    Quote Originally Posted by JJ88 View Post
    I just don't feel this line-up was really a 'band', as I said. It might have become one if they'd been together longer.
    I think the main reason MKIII and MKIV even existed was because of managerial pressure that "You can't quite now", because like I said, they were on top of the world at the time. I think Jon Lord said when Gillian left, his attitude was "Well, it was a good run while it lasted", and then their manager showed him the current chart listings showing how well Purple were doing, and when he said "Ian just quit", the manager said "Replace him". So that's they ended up looking for a new singer (and they then dropped the hammer on Roger Glover because Ritchie decided that he "couldn't work with Roger anymore"...ironic that Roger would end up being the longest serving member of Rainbow, and perhaps for the exact same reason that he was 86ed from Deep Purple back in 1973 or whenever it was).

    And I think the same thing happened when Ritchie quit, Jon was ready to say uncle, and whoever it was, I'm guessing a manager or whatever again wanted to keep things going. I think Jon said whoever it was came to him and said "Trust me, I've heard a guitarist who can replace Ritchie", and that's how they got Tommy into the band.

    So in other words, I think the logic for the band carrying on without Gillan and Glover in the first place hinged more on the desire to keep the gravy train going, rather than for any musical purpose.

    Could MKIV have evolved into something better? Hard to say. Even if they hadn't broken the band up, even if David hadn't quit, you still had Glenn and Tommy to grapple with. I've forgotten who it was who said they actually carried a guitar case full of cocaine and heroin around on tour for Glenn and Tommy.

    I can't remember if it was Joe Walsh or Jan Hammer who claimed that Tommy wasn't a junkie until he got into Deep Purple, and it was their "yes men" who caused Tommy to go off the deep end. On the other hand, I've also heard it said that the Deep Purple team knew that Tommy was an addict and they tried their best to keep the dealers away from him backstage or whatever, while on tour. Supposedly, the story goes that they did well on that front until they got to Japan, where somehow someone got to Tommy, and he OD'd, forcing the Japanese dates to be postponed, because one of his arms was paralyzed. Supposedly, for the first few shows, Jon had to cover for him, playing most of Tommy's solos on keyboards. Apparently by the time of the Last Concert In Japan/This Time Around show, Tommy had recovered sufficiently that he could play everything well enough, though perhaps he wasn't quite up to full speed the way he is on the King Biscuit release, for instance.

  7. #7
    Lots of interesting stuff about Mk IV.

    --Personally, the This Time Around release rehabilitated the Tokyo show for me. It's not that much better/worse/different than the shows they did later in America. Mk IV had its moments on stage, particularly in their own numbers. "Gettin' Tighter" in concert was just as good as anything Mk III did.

    --Tommy's addiction was a problem, but it probably wasn't the main problem. He didn't OD before the show, he fell asleep on his arm and woke up with it completely numb. Supposedly, an acupuncturist was able to fix him well enough to get him through the show--he doesn't play great, but he's fine in parts of the show that weren't used on Last Concert in Japan.

    --Tommy's addiction also wasn't the cause of his general crappy performances of Mk. II and III songs throughout his tenure. Supposedly, what happened is that in tour rehearsals he had wanted to play different parts to them and change the songs around (he was a jazz musician at heart), but the band members vetoed that out of fear of how it would be received. Tommy simply refused to learn Ritchie's parts accurately, and the rest of the band struggled on to play the songs somewhat in their original form. I also think that Tommy didn't have the chops to play Ritchie's parts accurately. Tommy was more of a "feel" player and excellent at what he did, but he wasn't a big technique guy.

    --If you want to hear what Mk IV should have been, check out the release "Days May Come and Days May Go" (OOP and a bit expensive now, unfortunately). It was taken from the album rehearsals, and shows a much looser and more interesting jam thing going on than what ended up on the album. Oddly enough, it seems more Deep Purple-like because of that. Tommy was still engaged in the music, and it looked like they could create something more new and interesting than they ended up with. http://www.amazon.com/Days-May-Come-Go/dp/B000023ZEA

  8. #8
    Wow, 70 bucks. I didn't pay nearly that for my copy of Days May Come. Glad I got it when I did. It's got some good jams and good liner notes. I may have to pull that one out later today.

    The falling asleep on the arm story. Does anyone buy that? I've always thought that was a bit suspect. People who do hard drugs tend to have problems in life and screwing up his arm seems normal considering that. Maybe I'm just being cynical but I'm on the fence with that one. Would have been nice to hear the band at full strength, even with the problems, rather than at half strength.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by TheLoony View Post
    The falling asleep on the arm story. Does anyone buy that? I've always thought that was a bit suspect. People who do hard drugs tend to have problems in life and screwing up his arm seems normal considering that. Maybe I'm just being cynical but I'm on the fence with that one. Would have been nice to hear the band at full strength, even with the problems, rather than at half strength.
    It does seem a bit contrived. I mean, how does falling asleep on your arm incapacitate it to the point that he couldn't play guitar for several days?! I've never heard of that. That sounds like one of those PR stories that get put out at the time, like the story of Tangerine Dream having to cancel the second part of their 77 US tour because either Edgar or Chris, I forget which one, broke his arm horseback riding. I think years later, in an interview, they admitted the truth was the promoters pulled out of the rest of the tour because they lost their shirts when a certain British trio's that summer fizzled (I think you know the one I'm talking about, the one with the Yamaha GX-1, an orchestra, an drummer who decades later inform a certain audience member that "there are no refunds" on Love Beach!). ANother one of those kind of made of PR things was the story about the Daughters Of The American Revolution supposedly pressuring The Monkees into dropping Jimi Hendrix as their opening act (truth was, Jimi got sick of playing to pre-teens who weren't "ready" for his thing yet, so he walked off the tour).

    If you want to hear Deep Purple MKIV at full strength, seek out the King Biscuit double CD. THat was from the American leg of the tour, and apparently, by then, Tommy had fully recovered. The one thing missing on it is Wild Dogs, which apparently wasn't played on that leg (or at least, not on that night).

  10. #10
    Is there any difference in the sound or packaging between the King Biscuit and On the wings of Russian foxbat? The KB is ten bucks more. I didn't know there was the KB show but I had heard of the Russian one. Thought it was a show in Russia, although that makes little sense now. Actually, at Amazon it's not titled that, just In Concert. Ok, searched a little more, Foxbat is there and priced in between the other two.

    Damn, they don't make it easy with this band. Three versions, which one do I get?

  11. #11
    The 'Foxbat' boot was named because of a then-recent defection by a Soviet pilot who flew a MiG-25 (Foxbat) to Japan. Quite what that has to do with a tape of a US show I don't know. Bootleg titles are often quite obscure - there's another Purple show released as 'Perks and Tit'.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheLoony View Post
    The falling asleep on the arm story. Does anyone buy that?
    'Convenient' is the word. Bolin in particular, and Hughes to some degree, had serious problems at the time. As noted above, their very last show of the tour was said to be equally dodgy to the point that three people in the band agreed to throw in the towel after that. This was clearly not just one 'off night' IMHO.

    The live material of this line-up I've heard, simply isn't up to the standard they'd set with the great Mark II line-up IMHO. The fire has gone, IMHO. Jon Lord said in several interviews, he didn't much care for the studio albums of this period either. Similarly Glenn Hughes has said the same about the Deep Purple sound before he joined.
    Last edited by JJ88; 08-11-2014 at 04:04 AM.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by TheLoony View Post
    The falling asleep on the arm story. Does anyone buy that? I've always thought that was a bit suspect. People who do hard drugs tend to have problems in life and screwing up his arm seems normal considering that. Maybe I'm just being cynical but I'm on the fence with that one. Would have been nice to hear the band at full strength, even with the problems, rather than at half strength.
    I do. It's entirely compatible with him being on drugs. I can imagine him falling out cold in a bad position and sleeping over his arm all night. I've woken up with a numb arm in the middle of the night before, and I can only imagine how much worse it'd be if I slept on it all night.

    My point was that the drugs don't really explain why Tommy played so poorly in Purple. He was notorious in his solo shows for being able to play wonderfully while barely being able to walk. Ultimately, I think the big problem was that he joined Purple for the money and publicity boost, not because he liked their music. He didn't have the enthusiasm to do the job right, and I suspect the drugs and his carefree attitude were at odds with being a 'professional' about it. Ironically, he had met Ritchie Blackmore some time before that, and they apparently got along famously.

    I wish that Tommy and Glenn had gotten to do their post-Purple project they had intended to do. It probably would have been much better than Mk. IV.

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