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IAN GILLAN HAS A GREAT VOICE, BUT...

A. ANNIS | Athens, GREECE | 04/06/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Well, Ian Gillan has a great voice,yes - but to my opinion after leaving Deep Purple during the 70's he is being wasting it in mediocre and low class songs ( with a few exceptions ).
I am not a die-hard fan but I admire his voice's quality and his abilities as a singer and I do follow his career listening to his releases.
Still, this performance - videotaped at Central Studios Nottingham ( from Bedrock series,as indicated, but no other info about the concert, no place and no year(?) - has just a few highlights to offer concerning the track-listing ( and most of these highlights refer to songs from the Deep Purple days ).
The band is performing so boring typically, actually 'sleeping on the job' - a complete lack of imagination in guitar solos from Mr.Steve Morris and even worse for the keyboardist Mr. Tommy Eyre ( makes you conjure up the Colin Towns creative improvisations ) - so much goes for the rest of the members, Mr. Chris Glenn on the bass and Mr. Ted McKenna on drums ( who could be anybody playing on duty ). Ah, there is also Mr. Mick O'Donoghue on second guitar and Mr. Dave Lloyd in backing vocals - didn't add much, anyway.
Of course Ian Gillan is great, he gives his best at 'Demon's Eye' and at 'No More Cane On The Brazos' - even better at 'When A Man Cries' ( if it wouldn't be that silly and 'light' keyboard arrangement it would be a most beautiful version ).
Makes you think how come and a singer of this class can stand to collaborate with such musicians - so much for the line-up, anyway.
The track-listing of the performance is as follows:
1.Gut Reaction
2.Demon's Eye
3.Living For The City
4.No More Cane On The Brazos
5.I Thought No
6.When A Blind Man Cries
7.No Good Luck
8.Lucille
9.Smoke On The Water The filming of the concert is nothing special- the result is you finally realise the absence of any energy from the group and the response from the audience too.
The whole concert lasts ONLY 48 minutes aproximately although on the DVD cover says is 80 -( the rest 32 minutes is samples from other releases by the company ).
I rate this DVD with 3 stars only for the voice of Ian which swings - the rest is disappointment. I wonder why don't they come up with better concerts by Ian Gillan Band ( 'Budokan' for instance - a concert which was surely filmed ).
To paraphrase one song from the track-list,
"At first I thought I should keep this DVD, but then again I THOUGHT NO" - Sorry Ian."

DVD is Missing Two Cuts

Simpsons Collector | Calgary, Alberta Canada | 04/23/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I have the original VHS tape of this show and I was happy to hear that it was out on DVD. However, I was greatly disappointed to find out that Puget Sound and Sweet Lolita, two songs on the VHS tape did not appear on the DVD. The VHS show is 58 minutes long and the DVD concert is 48 minutes long.I e-mailed the manufacturer and the only response I got was 'That's the way it was when we bought the rights to it'. I could understand if it was a copyright issue, but these songs are both Gillan compositions, so that argument doesn't hold water.Get yourself a copy of the hard-to-find VHS tape or better yet the even-harder-to-find laserdisc if you want to see the uncut original."