Deep Release

This release had been recorded live by ABC-TV on 6th April 1974 at the Ontario Speedway near Los Angeles, California. First released in 1981 on VHS-Video in the UK on BBC Video. First time released on CD and on Compact Cassette in the UK in June 1996 by EMI Premier. Released in the US 1996 on BMG/Mausoleum Classix/King Biscuit Ent. with different release title: "Live at the California Jam". Another later reissue was released in the UK in 2003 on Purple Records, titled "Just Might Take Your Life". All mentioned releases have different cover-artworks!

In 1974, Deep Purple were proving detractors wrong who figured that the exit of both singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover a year earlier would lead the group into an artistic tailspin. But as it turned out, newcomers David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes were worthy replacements, who contributed significantly to two more Purple classics in a single-year span, Burn and Stormbringer. And the "new look Purple" was certainly capable of delivering the goods during their live performances that year, as evidenced by the 2011 archival release, Live in London 1974. Expectedly, the track listing is comprised of then-new tunes (a red hot, set-opening reading of Burn's title track, as well as "Might Just Take Your Life," etc.), plus classics ("Smoke on the Water," "Space Truckin'," etc.).

Deep Purple survived a seemingly endless series of line-up changes and a dramatic mid-career shift from grandiose progressive rock to ear-shattering heavy metal to emerge as a true institution of the British hard rock community. Once credited in The Guinness Book of World Records as the globe's loudest band, their revolving-door roster launched the careers of performers including Ritchie Blackmore, David Coverdale, and Ian Gillan…

Though it was considered a disappointment upon its release (indeed, its production was much too sleek at times, and it lacked the creative daring of Perfect Strangers), 1987's House of Blue Light has actually stood the test of time just as well, if not better, than its predecessor. The second effort from the re-formed Mark II lineup, this album showed Deep Purple searching for an '80s-flavored hit single, and by doing so, sounding uncomfortably similar to guitarist Ritchie Blackmore's other band, Rainbow. Virtually all of the record's first half suffers from this (especially "Unwritten Law" and "Bad Attitude"), but things improve with the Eastern-flavored melodies of "The Spanish Archer" and "Strange Ways."

Deep Purple have never quite been placed in the revered 1960s canon that includes the Who, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, or any of the other British rock bands who continue to reunite in various configurations to tour and even periodically release new albums, but given that the group has always been a riveting and brilliant live act, part prog, part heavy metal, part funky R&B, and imminently theatrical, that second-tier designation seems like both an oversight and a shame. Returning with this set, the band's first since 2005's Rapture of the Deep, and featuring a near-classic lineup of vocalist Ian Gillan, guitarist Steve Morse, bassist Roger Glover, drummer Ian Paice, and keyboardist Don Airey (Jon Lord, whose distorted organ parts were so much a part of the classic Deep Purple sound, left the band in 2002 and died in 2012 of pancreatic cancer), one can only marvel at how timeless it sounds, as if it were actually recorded in the early '70s and not tracked a little more than a decade into the 21st century.