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Welcome
to our Looking Back section, where we are following the progress
of the Deep Purple reunion as it happened month by month twenty
years ago.
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| Paris,
8/9th July 1985 poster |
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Paris
, 1985 ( Simon Robinson)
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| Paris
, 1985 ( Simon Robinson) |
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The
Deep Purple Appreciation Society was following events at the time,
and with the help of news cuttings, interviews and pictures, we
hope to stir some memories. If you have any recollections to add
for the next issue of Darker Than Blue, do
get in touch.
JULY
/ AUGUST 1985: July
was actually a little less hectic for the band. They kicked off
with an all-day open-air festival in Germany, along similar lines
to Knebworth, and supported by a reformed Mountain and (from Knebworth)
Meatloaf.
With
the UK festival a less than thrilling event, many British fans
took organised trips across to France to catch the band again
in Paris, where they did two nights at the massive Omnisport.
Both
shows are reported as being filmed, and the second night was shown
in the Rockpalast slot on German TV. Despite a lot of requests
over the years, it has never been issued officially. The reason
is probably that Ian was really struggling, although as a band,
the second night was really powerful and more than made up for
the Knebworth experience.
A
couple of days off then two more nights back to back, this time
in Zurich. The second gig on the 14th was quickly issued on a
triple album vinyl bootleg. Two gigs in Spain [Barcelona 3rd;
Madrid 2nd] were rescheduled for two weeks later [Barcelona 16th;
Madrid 17th], to allow Gillan's throat a week's rest between the
two German festivals. They were the last shows of the European
tour.
August
saw the end of the first reunion tour, with three shows in America,
the last of which was the enormous Texxas (sic) World Music festival,
before an estimated crowd of over 60,000 people (the venue holds
80,000 and was sold out). Deep Purple fans had to bake in the
sun for 8 hours before the headliners came on.
The
American trade paper Billboard later reported that Deep Purple
had been the biggest grossing live act of the year. Everything
the reunion has set out to do had been done. After the tour Ian
Gillan had an operation to remove his tonsils, and then he and
the others dispersed for some r'n'r.
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