Search - Deep Purple: Live in California '74 - The DVD Archive Collection on DVD

Live, Loud, Proud....and Loud. This is Spinal Tap...I mean D

Glen G. Boyd | Seattle, WA USA | 04/07/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I have a confession to make.

I really miss seventies arena rock.

No, I'm not talking about the bloated, watered down late seventies model popularized by blow dried, faceless power balladeers like Boston, Styx, and REO Speedwagon.

I'm talking about the real stuff.

Seventies arena metal.

Sheiking Vocals.

Fuzzboxes. Feedback. Flash Pots.

Drum Solos.

You know...

The stuff you'd go to hear in an arena filled with the thick haze of pot smoke. Where you'd wait outside for hours prior to showtime, in anticipation of the mad rush to the stage to secure the best "festival seating" (remember that?) once the doors opened.

It was the greatest stuff ever.

Led Zeppelin. Black Sabbath. Uriah Heep.

And Deep Purple.

In 1974, when this DVD was filmed, Deep Purple was a band at the height of it's powers.

Their primary distinction at the time was the fact that they we're generally believed to be the loudest band in the world...they we're even listed as such in that year's edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.

I can personally back that claim with a story of my own.

I saw Deep Purple in Seattle that year at a show from the very same tour captured on this DVD. Being a dedicated rocker at the time...and being much younger and stupider than I am today...I opted to park myself, as well my unprotected ears, right in front of the stage.

What I remember most about that night, is that between songs all I could hear was this sort of low, droning hum.

No applause. No crowd noise. Nothing.

Just the hum.

And for the next three days I couldn't hear anything else either.

In fact, I found myself bumping into things a lot and walking kind of sideways.

What I later learned, after finally seeing a doctor, was that this was due to the fact that the short term hearing loss I had suffered from the concert had also affected my equilibrium.

Yeah. Deep Purple were loud all right.

They were also at that particular moment in time, arguably the biggest and best heavy metal band on earth.

Deep Purple played no bigger show that year than the one they played before about 200,000 people at the California Jam held at Ontario Speedway.

Sharing a bill with such other hitmakers of the day as Sabbath (no slouches in the volume category themselves), Emerson Lake & Palmer, and The Eagles, Deep Purple's set at California Jam was also filmed for broadcast on ABC's late night "In Concert" showcase program.

This DVD represents the first time the entire Deep Purple performance from California Jam has been commercially available.

With a running time of about 119 minutes, the set consists of a mere seven songs. Which not only tells you something about the song lengths among heavy metal bands of the day in 1974, but more importantly, that you are in for a treat here if you are a sucker for extended jams.

Touring to support their 1974 album Burn, Deep Purple also introduced it's two newest members...a then unheard of vocalist named David Coverdale, and ex-Trapeze bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes...that year. Replacing the departed Ian Gillian and Roger Glover, California Jam had to be something of a trial by fire for the two rookies.

Indeed there are some initial jitters. Coverdale seems fixated on locating the California sunset, while Hughes does an inordinate of nasal sniffing in between songs. In the seventies, it seems things did indeed go better with...

...Anyway...

By the time of a blistering "Mistreated", Coverdale in particular seems to find much of his future Whitesnake form. Belting out the bluesy lyrics with all the bluster of a younger Robert Plant, Coverdale also matches Ritchie Blackmore's
guitar pyrotechnics note for note.

Blackmore of course, was considered something of a guitar vituoso back then...mentioned in the same breath as such masters of the era as Clapton, Beck, and Page.

For much of this DVD, the camera favors Blackmore from the rear for some odd reason.

But occasionally, you can catch glimpses of his fingers flying over the fretboard. It is here you can see where he earned his reputation as one of the era's greatest guitarists, and a later inspiration to everyone from Eddie Van Halen to Yngwie Malmsteen.

As the show begins to draw to a close, Deep Purple bring out the big guns in true seventies arena metal fashion. For California Jam, that meant the biggest gun of all, "Smoke On The Water". In an era where riffs were king, "Smoke On The Water" was indisputedly the biggest riff rocker of them all.

It also meant twenty some odd minutes of a show stopping version of the concert staple "Space Truckin", from Deep Purple's breakthrough Machine Head album.

If you are one of those people who skips through your DVDs, this is the one to fast forward to. For the afficionado of the extended seventies arena rock jam, "Space Truckin" is the payoff.

After the obligatory solos from keyboardist Jon Lord and drummer Ian Paice, Blackmore goes on an absolute tear...eventually destroying several guitars, a camera, a monitor or three, and finally blowing up the amplifiers.

At the time, it was apparently somewhat of a controversial move...although I do recall an eerily similar scene captured on film when The Who played the Monterey Pop Festival. Still, it is a visually stunning sight, and this DVD captures the event in all of it's incendiary glory.

Deep Purple Live At The California Jam 1974 is a worthy snapshot of a long forgotten rock and roll era. The film quality is remarkably good given the time that it was recorded, and the Dolby 5.1 remastered audio captures the loudest band of it's time in all of their ear shattering glory.

And just for the record, despite everything you've heard, Deep Purple are not the band who inspired the film This Is Spinal Tap.

I have it on very good authority that was actually Uriah Heep."

Great music,complete presentation,inexplicably poor video qu

Philip A.Cohen | Bay Harbor Islands, Florida United States | 03/10/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Yes,this time,we're finally getting Deep Purple's 1974 California Jam concert complete,with the missing song "Lay Down,Stay Down",and the audio quality is decent,enhanced for surround from a mono or stereo orignal,but,for unknown reasons,the video quality is drastically inferior to any previous release.This is ostensibly from the original ABC television 2" videotapes,but,it actually looks like a very poor kinescope(Video to film transfer) with a very stuttery appearance during rapid movement.There is also a sound/picture synchronisation problem right after the layer change break,I.E. for the first 2 to 3 minutes of "Space Truckin'".This release was mastered by Deep Purple's present-day management,which is based in Australia.What were they using as a source? Though original 1980's home video releases(such as the UK videocassette on BBC Video and the Japanese videocassette on TOEI Video) were missing"Lay Down,Stay Down",at least they had the full picture quality.What went wrong on this release? I was alarmed when I heard that Eagle Rock Entertainment was going to be the U.S.A. licensee for this Deep Purple archive series,because a number of Eagle Rock's DVD releases had sound/picture synchronsation problems.My concern was justified."

Timeless Classic -rubbish production

A Coleman | Kaikoura, New Zealand | 04/15/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Brilliant Concert no argument about that! The musicianship is unrivalled. However I have had the California Jam video for 20 years and bought this thinking it would be a major step up in quality like the Led Zeppelin DVD. Well the audio is better than the VHS although it's still harsh and the drums are way back in the mix. There's no doubt that the audio could have done with some time spent remastering and/or remixing the soundtrack. The picture quality is a total disappointment and I have to say I actually prefer my video which 20 years on still has a clearer picture.
I guess with a lot of Purple stuff this has been rushed out with no thought on presenting it in a manner that represents the band in its full glory. Comparing it to the Led Zeppelin DVD it is a budget affair when it didn't have to be. With all that said the show is stunning and I can live with the [...] production- Ritchie Blackmore's blowing up the stage is priceless and his effortless no looking at the fret board guitar playing is astounding- what a champion!"

Very Poor PQ

J-Dub | Tracy, CA. | 03/05/2006

(1 out of 5 stars)

"My VHS tape is far better than this dvd release in terms of PQ. The sound here is pretty good, maybe better, but then it isn't in sync with the picture (especially the drum solo)! My dvd copy was $14.95...I see it's now lowered to $9.95! I'd wait till it's $4.95 and close my eyes during the drum solo--which is quite good BTW."