I don't agree with the exact ranking of this one, but it's fun to watch early Deep Purple. Perhaps I'll post my own top 20 after I get these up.
This clip is filmed in Denmark from the 1972 tour to promote their album Machine Head. From the wikipedia article on Blackmore:
The band included Rod Evans (vocals), Nick Simper (bass), Jon Lord (keyboards), and Ian Paice (drums). The band quickly scored a hit US single with its remake of the Joe South song "Hush". Nonetheless, after only three albums Evans and Simper were replaced by Ian Gillan (vocals) and Roger Glover (bass), both recruited from Episode Six.
Deep Purple's most famous album was Machine Head. The album was recorded by a mobile recording unit, the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio in Montreux, Switzerland. The band originally intended to record the album at a casino in Montreux, but the night before recording was to begin the casino hosted a Frank Zappa concert (with members of Deep Purple in attendance) at which an audience member fired a flare gun into the facility's bamboo roof. A tremendous fire ensued and the casino burned down. The entire tragedy is documented in the lyrics of what was to become Deep Purple's historic anthem "Smoke On The Water". The song opens with a simple Blackmore riff that many consider to be one of the most recognizable hard rock riffs ever recorded.
Don't miss Gillan kicking out an unruly audience member on this one...
Criminally underranked.
ReplyDeleteFANtastic song on all counts.