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Thread: What Happened To Ian Gillan?

  1. #1

    What Happened To Ian Gillan?

    He was singing his ass off when he was in Black Sabbath yet a year later in Deep Purple he can't sing for squat. What happened? It was only one year but the difference in the quality of his voice is ridiculous. Just watch a few minutes of this then check out the Sabbath recordings. I understand voices are really tricky but how did he go so bad in such a short time?

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  2. #2
    He was pretty much always very hit and miss live. There are some Gillan recordings from '81/'82 where he's absolutely terrible. Yeah he sounded amazing on Born Again, but I've got some bootlegs from the tour for that and he sounds pretty good on some and not so good on others (also depending on the song).

    And he wasn't in the best shape on the Perfect Strangers tour but he wasn't always as bad as on that Paris recording.

    It's a combination of blowing his voice out due to incorrect vocal technique plus excessive drinking/partying and not enough sleep. I know one of the reasons Blackmore left DP in '93 was his frustration with Gillan not keeping his voice in shape during tours.

  3. #3
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    I believe Gillan was ill on that Paris show in addition to the things that Darth mentions above. Yeah he sounds terrible. He's much better on the Perfect Strangers live DVD, recorded a few months earlier, and on the Come Hell or High Water DVD from the early 90s.

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    The split of Gillan the band was, he said, down to vocal problems. The band were then miffed, to say the least, when he soon turned up in Black Sabbath...but as noted here, something clearly did happen around this period.

    By and large though I find him still good. The days of 'Child In Time' are long behind him, sure, but he has adapted to his changing voice whilst keeping the songs in the same key.

  5. #5
    Saw him a few times in the 80's as 'Gillan' & his voice was amazing. Most recently saw him last year in DP & yeah, he's lost his range but let's give him some slack considering his age and the toll of years of touring!

  6. #6
    Ah, this brings back memories indeed.

    I considered myself one of the world's biggest DP fans at 14 when seeing this show transmitted on Norwegian television, although I'd admittedly been quite disappointed with the PS reunion album. However, when I caught this performance on TV pretty much all of my remaining enthusiasm for the band essentially evaporated. I thought they came across as weak and uninspired, and I can still sense my own disillusion. I've since experienced similar impressions with other artists.
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    My only real issue with Perfect Strangers relates to the production, which I find over-slick...typical of the 80s.

    I can't really comment on what they were like live in this period.

  8. #8
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    I read in his autobiography that he disbanded the Gillan band in 1982 because he had damaged his voice badly and needed a long break from singing. The Sabbath gig was the first thing he did after that, so his vocal cords were probably quite well rested by then.

  9. #9
    I saw DP in Philly on the PS tour and he sounded terrific. I have the recording to back that up. He killed on "Child in Time," which caught many of us by surprise. Later tours were not as impressive. In fact, by '87, I felt he should give up the yelling, which was really forced.
    Last edited by ronmac; 05-26-2016 at 10:57 AM.
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    Member Joe F.'s Avatar
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    I saw them on the PS tour in Tacoma and Gillan sounded great to my ears.

    I saw them a couple of years ago, and while he sounded fine, he no longer has the range, and some of the high notes were strained.

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    He has good nights and bad nights.

  12. #12
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    I saw the PS tour in Chicago. I was not expecting greatness from Gillan, but he blew me away. Paice was outstanding too. Blackmore was in one of his "I'd rather be elsewhere" moods. I have not seen him live since, but I've checked out a lot of YouTube TV appearances, etc. and he really sounds great. He's just got that certain TONE to his voice.

  13. #13
    There's an old story that says that Gillan seriously damaged his voice on the tour with Sabbath.
    I don't know if it's true - but if he actually did those wild screams on stage without taking care of his voice...

    Anyway, I'm glad he's still alive, touring and singing. Even on a bad night, he's still a unique singer.

  14. #14
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    In the music biz, this is referred to as an "off night."
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    I think Perfect Strangers is fantastic and Gillan sings great on it. And what about Bananas? One of my fav DP albums. He sings great on that too.

  16. #16
    I think Perfect Strangers is fantastic and Gillan sings great on it
    He was definitely great on the album (though I always found it odd there's hardly any of his classic high screaming on it, when just the year before he basically screamed his way through the whole Born Again album).

    And what about Bananas? One of my fav DP albums. He sings great on that too.
    I've always really like Bananas. Saw them twice on that tour and thought he sounded really good - not early 70s good of course, but definitely better than live recording I had heard from the years leading up to Bananas.

    Since then however he has simply lost too much. Not just range but power as well, and he's often pitchy, I think just due to his voice being too wobbly.

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    Sadly, I've yet to see DP live, but that will be remedied this summer

  18. #18
    I saw him in 81 with his band, and again in 83 with Black Sabbath. Great shows, but I can't remember the details that well now!
    Both times in Germany oddly enough, the Rosengarten in Mannheim. Nicest rock star I've ever met.
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  19. #19
    Member Jerjo's Avatar
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    Like some of his peers, he's learned to sing with the voice he has. And while he can't caterwaul like the early 70s, he still has a damn fine voice

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    Quote Originally Posted by strawberrybrick View Post
    I saw him in 81 with his band, and again in 83 with Black Sabbath. Great shows, but I can't remember the details that well now!
    Both times in Germany oddly enough, the Rosengarten in Mannheim. Nicest rock star I've ever met.
    Ha ha, The Rosengarten in Mannheim, what unit were you serving with then? I liked Mannheim, early 90s - Ben Franklin Village, Mark Twain Village, Patrick Henry Village or was Mark Twain in Heidelberg? Memory failing. The Sunday brunch in the officers mess at PHV was great!

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    I saw the Black Sabbath “Born Again” tour and both the Deep Purple “Perfect Strangers” and “House Of Blue Light” tours and thought he sounded great on all of them. Have not seen him since though other than on TV / Youtube.

  22. #22
    Gillan's voice wasn't as "out front" on Born Again as it was on Perfect Strangers, which I think accounts for some of the difference. And, as others have said, he was having good nights and bad nights during that period.

    He had to have surgery on his vocal cords in 1982; it wasn't just a "rest." I'd argue that he came back too soon with Sabbath or that he probably should have chosen something a little less stressful than all the "hell screams" on Born Again and the resulting tour.

    Interestingly, I feel like Gillan gave far and away the best performances of the Ozzy-era songs in the entire history of Sabbath. Neither Dio nor Tony Martin were all that strong singing the Ozzy-era stuff, and Ozzy himself was a pretty weak performer in concert.

  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by profusion View Post

    Interestingly, I feel like Gillan gave far and away the best performances of the Ozzy-era songs in the entire history of Sabbath. Neither Dio nor Tony Martin were all that strong singing the Ozzy-era stuff, and Ozzy himself was a pretty weak performer in concert.
    I have the re-mastered "Born Again" album that also contains a live album from the tour and I think Gillian sounds really good for the most part. He does a pretty good job on the Ozzy stuff.

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    Just had the chance to watch a good chunk of the video you posted. I really think that was just an off night. The video brought back some great memories of the tour. I saw them in Detroit MI and I remember Gillian sounding much better than in the vid you posted. Seeing this old footage also reminds me of what an incredible guitarist Blackmore was. Now that he no longer does rock anymore sometimes it is easy to forget.

  25. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by SteveSly View Post
    I have the re-mastered "Born Again" album that also contains a live album from the tour and I think Gillian sounds really good for the most part. He does a pretty good job on the Ozzy stuff.
    Dio, as great as he is, didn't sound right doing Ozzy tunes and I concur that Gillan did the best with the old Ozzy tunes. War Pigs is quite cool with his screams.

    For whatever reason, and he did use his voice to it's extreme, it happened. There could be just one reason but I do agree with most of what's been said here, it's a multitude of reasons. I did pick out a particularly bad show but I had just listened to the Born Again live stuff a couple of seeks ago and the difference is amazing.

    Heaven and Hell with Gillan. Quite cool, he does it very well.



    And there is also this.



    Would this band have stayed together if DP hadn't reunited? Odd career choice for Bev Bevan, IMO, going from ELO to BS. Who is playing the keys?

    I guess this explains the situation well enough, from the Wiki page.

    [QUOTEAccording to Iommi's autobiography, Ward began drinking again near the end of the Born Again recording sessions and returned to Los Angeles for treatment. The band recruited Bev Bevan, who had played with The Move and ELO, for the upcoming tour in support of the new album. Gillan had all the lyrics to the Sabbath songs written out and plastered all over the stage, explaining to Martin Baker in 1992, "I couldn't get into my brain any of these lyrics...I cannot soak in these words. There's no storyline. I can't relate to what they mean." Gillan attempted to overcome the problem by having a cue book with plastic pages on stage, which he would turn with his foot during the show. However, Gillan did not anticipate the "six buckets" of dry ice that engulfed the stage, making it impossible for the singer to see the lyric sheets. "Ian wasn't very sure-footed either," Iommi writes in his memoir. "He once fell over my pedal board. He was waving at the people, stepped back and, bang!, he went arse over head big time." Gillan also told Birch that it was Don Arden's idea to open the show with a crying baby blaring over the speakers and a dwarf made to look exactly like the demonic baby depicted on the Born Again album cover miming to the screaming. "We noticed a dwarf walking around the day before the opening show...And we're saying to Don, 'We think this is in the worst possible taste, this dwarf, you know?' And Don's going, 'Nah, the kids will love it, it'll be great.'"

    The tour is most infamous, however, for the gigantic Stonehenge props the band used. Iommi recalls in his autobiography that it was Butler's idea but the designers took his measurements the wrong way and thought it was meant to be life-size. Months later, while rehearsing for the tour at the Birmingham NEC, the stage set arrived. "We were in shock," writes Iommi. "This stuff was coming in and in and in. It had all these huge columns in the back that were as wide as your average bedroom, the columns in front were about 13 feet high, and we had all the monitors and the side fills as well as all this rock. It was made of fiberglass and wood, and bloody heavy." The set would be lampooned in Rob Reiner's 1984 rock music mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, with the band having the opposite problem of having to use miniature Stonehenge stage props. Butler has said that he told the associate scriptwriter of the film the story of the band's performances with their "Stonehenge" stage props.[29] In an interview for the documentary Black Sabbath: 1978–1992, Gillan claims Don Arden had the dwarf walk across the top of the Stonehenge props at the start of the show and, as the tape of the screaming baby faded away, fall back "from about thirty-five feet in the air on this big pile of mattresses. And then, 'Dong!' The bells start and the monks come out, the whole thing. Pure Spinal Tap." The band toured Europe first, playing the Reading Festival (a performance that is included on the 2011 deluxe edition of Born Again) and also playing in a bullring in Barcelona in September. Sabbath performed Gillan's hit with Deep Purple, "Smoke on the Water", on the tour, with Iommi explaining in his memoir, "it seemed like a bum deal for him not to do any of his stuff while he was doing all of ours. I don't know if we played it properly but the audience loved it. The critics moaned; it was something out of the bag and they didn't want to know then." In October, the band took the Stonehenge set to America but could only use a portion of it at most gigs because the columns were too high. The set was eventually abandoned. A music video for "Zero the Hero" was also released, featuring performance footage of the band onstage interspersed with scenes involving several grotesque characters performing experiments on a witless young man in a haunted house filled with rats, roosters and even a roaming horse. Like most of the accoutrements associated with the tour, it was more unintentionally funny than scary.

    The tour was a breaking point for Butler, who admits in the Black Sabbath: 1978–1992 documentary, "I just got totally disillusioned with the whole thing and I left some time in 1984 after the Born Again tour. I just had enough of it."][QUOTE]

    I did see the tour with the Stonehnge set, the night Ian met Mitzee Dupree on the flight from Vegas to SLC. I was 15 years old and that dwarf that jumped off the Stonehenge set was cool as shit, and the monks that came out and opened up the lights under the drum riser to the opening bass beats of Iron Man were cool, IIRC. The lighted cross under the drum riser was blinding but so cool to me at the time.
    Last edited by TheLoony; 05-27-2016 at 04:43 AM.
    Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000

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