IN THE ABSENCE OF PINK: KNEBWORTH 85

To experience a live set of the band is always quite an experience (and I have seen them quite a few times in the last thirty-five years). As Ian will say after a couple of songs: It has been quite a long time. Indeed. Some twelve years between the end of Mark II and this Knebworth concert.

The band is in excellent shape: Gillan sounds very enthusiastic, Paice is as great as always, Blackmore is inspired, Glover is sustaining as much as he can and Lord is pumping these great sounds out of his organ as he has always done in the past. A keyboards machine, really.

This was the supporting tour of their very good reunion album Perfect Strangers released in 1984. But of course, the core of this live release is made of old songs as Gillan said.

This double CD set is clearly identifiable: the first one holds four new songs (out of seven) while the second one is made up of good old tunes. You might be surprised though about my feeling about the whole set.

Things start awesomely of course with Highway Star (one of my top three fave from Purple as you might know). Most of the new songs played are an excellent choice to keep the audience hot for older things to come.

Still, Gypsy's Kiss and Perfect Strangers belong to the best of this live album. There are of course two giant tracks from earlier times as well: Lazy with no Lord's fantasy to start with. It is more in the vein of the studio track in comparison with most live Purple performances.

The second old song has been made famous with Made In Japan. From a very good hard-rock single, Purple made a live anthem out of it. Strange Kind Of Woman is one of the best live call and response I have ever seen between guitar and vocals. The other one is of course the mighty Led Zep in several exercises of the same type. IMHHO, none have been equalled.

Even if a good chunk of this special passage is dedicated to Jesus-Christ Superstar and some sort of karaoke (at this time of their career, this call & response was better known in the UK than in 1972 by the Japanese audience who discovered the band for what became one of the major live album of the rock history). This is always a great live moment.

Now, when you look at the track list of the second CD, you might think: let's skip the first CD and get concentrated on the second one. Well, I would say that it is the wrong feeling after you have effectively listened to it.

This part of the set is the most self-indulgent one. Over-extended solo (like they used to play in the early seventies) and a very shouting Gillan (too much actually).

Since MIJ, we were used to a long Space Truckin which was not really my cup of tea. This version is only fourteen minutes long, but the jam which takes place after the official part is just noisy IMO. And the same applies to half of the great Speed King from In Rock. There is a rare wink to a non- Gillan song in here: a short riff from Burn which Gillan always refused to sing (unfortunately).

Half of this Black Night could have been skipped and the closing Smoke. is an example of what it is going to be for the next twenty years: a long Karaoke exercise which has never been of my liking. I usually just shut up while attending.

In all, it is pleasant to hear that the band is happy again to be on stage together but I can't be laudatory about it. It remains a good live album, but there are many better Purple ones.

Three stars.

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