LAST CONCERT IN JAPAN

I have witnessed many, many live performances from these guys, featuring as early concerts from mark II in 1973. This one was the last Mark IV concert in Japan. There are two versions for this live album. A short version called " Last Concert In Japan" which is the one we are talking about here and an extended one called "This Time Around".

I have reviewed the extended version already and I can only recommend you this shortened one: it displayed less solos and average tracks than the expanded version.

Great tracks as "Burn" and "You Keep On Moving" are the best that you can expect from this Mark IV live album. The Bolin song "Wild Dogs" is not bad at all, but can't compete with the great and earlier Purple Marks.

Effective and rhythmic version of "Smoke On The Water" is not bad at all. Even if the genuine live versions with Gillan are better (at least the great "In Concert at The BBC", this one is quite good by all means. What I don't at all is that some songs are quite emasculated like "Woman From Tokyo". But the band has used their fans to this "feature": either extended versions of original tracks ("Space Truckin" for instance) or cut down versions like this one.

None of them are of my liking. This one is just a showcase for Jon Lord and is purely instrumental.

Unlike Mark II, "Highway Star" was now mostly closing their concerts. As I have already written some times, this is one of my top three Purple favorite. This Hughes/Coverdale version is rather average.

In all, this short version of the "last" concerts in Japan is quite satisfactory and of better quality than the longer counterpart, but I wouldn't recommend this album to Purple newbies. Thre