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Live albums have been a major feature of Deep Purple’s long career, beginning with 1969’s grandiose Concerto For Group And Orchestra and peaking with 1972’s mind-blowing Made In Japan. Now, as that career reaches its end stage, a new set of Purple concert recordings, The Soundboard Series, kicks off with Live In Newcastle 2001.

Recorded not on Tyneside but in Newcastle, Australia, the album looks like a bootleg with its brown paper and stencilling design. But as the ‘Soundboard’ tag indicates, the audio quality is high. And the performance, from the Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice/Morse line-up, is masterful.

Three songs from 1996’s Purpendicular (the band’s first album with Steve Morse on guitar) are featured alongside deathless classics including Lazy and, inevitably, Smoke On The Water, and on the encore local hero Jimmy Barnes out-yells Ian Gillan.

Made In Japan is unbeatable, a landmark album. This one is for serious Purple collectors only.

Live In Newcastle 2001 Tracklist
Woman from Tokyo
Ted the Mechanic
Mary Long
Lazy
No One Came
Black Night
Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming
Fools
Perfect Strangers
Hey Cisco
When a Blind Man Cries
Smoke On the Water
Speed King/Good Times (With Jimmy Barnes)
Hush
Highway Star (With Jimmy Barnes & Ian Moss)

Freelance writer for Classic Rock since 2005, Paul Elliott has worked for leading music titles since 1985, including Sounds, Kerrang!, MOJO and Q. He is the author of several books including the first biography of Guns N’ Roses and the autobiography of bodyguard-to-the-stars Danny Francis. He has written liner notes for classic album reissues by artists such as Def Leppard, Thin Lizzy and Kiss, and currently works as content editor for Total Guitar. He lives in Bath - of which David Coverdale recently said: “How very Roman of you!”

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