Rock legends still enjoying a Purple patch

By Kirk Blows

Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan once told this writer that he didn’t “want to be yelling and screaming and running around the stage when I’m 60” – yet he proved there’s still plenty of fuel in the tank at the age of 80 during a powerful show at Marbella’s Starlite Occident festival on Thursday, July 9.

Promoting their new album ‘Splat!’, their 24th studio offering since their late ’60s inception and incredibly their fourth in the last six years, the band – which also includes the long-time rhythm section of Roger Glover (bass) and Ian Paice (drums) – were joined by the experienced Don Airey on keyboards and relatively new guitarist Simon McBride, who at 47 is the virtual baby of the group after joining four years ago.

‘Highway Star’ from their 1970s heyday was the perfect opener and quickly proved there was no need to dust off any cobwebs before delivering a set that drew on material new and (mostly) old.

McBride may be no Ritchie Blackmore, the famously enigmatic founding member who will always be the guitarist most associated with Purple despite Steve Morse having spent 28 years in the band, yet it immediately becomes clear that he is a supremely accomplished musician.

He wasn’t even born when the classic Mark II line-up of the band fractured in the mid-70s before an eight-year break and has had big boots to fill, but it can be argued that he has helped to inject a new fire in their bellies.

All of the band had many opportunities to display their musical prowess but it’s the emotive ‘When A Blind Man Cries’ – a song that has magically taken on a life of its own after initially being buried as a non-album B-side of a flop single – that allows Gillan to show he is still in great voice.

Heavyweight classic ‘Space Truckin’’ and the essential ‘Smoke On The Water’ closed out the main set before ‘Hush’ was excavated from 1968 and No.2 hit single ‘Black Night’ wrapped up the encore.

Sadly, there was no room for the epic ‘Child In Time’, which has not been played for over 20 years, most probably due to its unique vocal demands.

Gillan may not be “running around the stage” as such but there was still enough “yelling and screaming” to send the Marbella crowd home happy.

Other Starlite Occident events include Jean-Michel Jarre (July 13), Anastasia (July 14) and Kool & The Gang (July 23)…