Deep Purple – Live At Montreux 1996

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Eagle Vision
Produced by Deep Purple

Another release in the excellent Eagle Records/Vision series of Montreux Jazz Festival concerts. This one is a bit of an odd one, though. It contains the complete show from Deep Purple’s appearance in 1996, plus some songs from their performance in 2000 as a bonus. The question is, why not release the 2000 show complete as well?

Slightly differently to the Alice Cooper release, this one features a DVD and CD as separate products. Perhaps not quite as good value for money, as two purchases are required, but at least the material is available. The DVD contains all 11 songs from the band’s 1996 set, plus a further five songs from 2000. The CD contains ten of the 11 1996 tracks (missing Cascades: I’m Not Your Love) and a further two songs from 2000, neither of which are on the DVD.

Only one song (When A Blind Man Cries) from the 2000 material duplicates a song from the 1996 show. Perhaps that’s why the rest of it isn’t available; Because it duplicates songs from the earlier show. I wager most Deep Purple fans would rather have both concerts complete, though. Just look at the number of Deep Purple live shows already available on CD and DVD. The fans clearly can’t get enough.

In terms of the quality of the releases themselves, both the sound and picture quality are very good. The 1996 audio (on both the DVD and CD) is not quite as sharp as the 2000 tracks, but it does have that raw live feel of a Deep Purple show, giving it a certain unpolished authenticity. Ian Gillan does mess up the lyrics quite badly on Ted The Mechanic, but otherwise the band’s performance is typically excellent, particularly the instrumental jam in the middle of Black Night.

The more interesting tracks, it has to be said, come from the 2000 bonus material, featuring the rarely heard Fools (the highlight of the CD release) and ’69, especially given that Live At The Olympia is already available, which was recorded in Paris in 1996 and features all of the songs from the 1996 Montreux set with extra songs in between over two discs.

As with the Alice Cooper release reviewed previously there are no pointless back-stage documentaries, boring interviews or other such periphery nonsense people will only ever watch once at most. This is purely the music (the thing we’re all interested in in the first place), and the bonus material is… more music! Just the way it should be, and Eagle should be commended for this approach.

This is another great release in the series and worthy of a spot in any Deep Purple collection. It is, however, a slight missed opportunity since both of Deep Purple’s Montreux sets from 1996 and 2000 could have been included in their entirety. Fans wouldn’t have minded duplicate tracks (let’s face it, they all own 39 versions of some of them already) and a double CD and double DVD would have been the ultimate package. Both sets may even have fitted on the same DVD, in which case a three-disc deluxe boxed set could have made this the crowning glory in the Montreux series.

“ worthy ”

Tracklist:
DVD – Fireball / Ted The Mechanic / Pictures of Home / Cascades: I’m Not Your Lover / Black Night / Woman From Tokyo / No One Came / When A Blind Man Cries / Hey Cisco / Speed King / Smoke On The Water / ’69 / Perfect Strangers / When A Blind Man Cries / Lazy / Highway Star

CD – Fireball / Ted The Mechanic / Pictures of Home / Black Night / Woman From Tokyo / No One Came / When A Blind Man Cries / Hey Cisco / Speed King / Smoke On The Water / Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming / Fools

Written by Andy Lye
More: Hard Rock, Live Albums, Live DVDs, Deep Purple