Copenhagen 1972 [2 CD]

Imagine a world without Machine Head. Imagine a Deep Purple set-list without Smoke On The Water. Imagine a time when the music business had yet to become a vast multi-national conglomerate. This was the primordial landscape on March 1st, 1972 when Deep Purple took to the stage at the Kobenhavns Boldklub (KB) Hallen in Copenhagen. It was a time of no boundaries or restrictions, no blueprints or formulas. Rock music wasn't exactly in its infancy, but there were still plenty of new territories to explore, ains to climb, peaks to conquer. It was a time when anything was possible. And Purple were on a mission to prove it. Purple had completed their Machine Head album at the tail-end of 1971 but at the time of this it hadn't arrived in the shops yet. Nevertheless, their show contained three songs Highway Star, Lazy and Space Truckin from that legendary release. It must have been a mind-boggling hang on a minute, make that life-changing experience, to be part of the Danish audience this stellar night. Everything about this is spontaneous and un-choreographed, loose and lethal, teetering and tempestuous. An explosive combination of brinkmanship and barely controlled chaos. Which, in a lip-synched and auto-tuned modern-day music world, comes as a breath of fresh air. The high spots just keep on coming. Jon Lord s heroic keyboard playing on Lazy, the mischievous guitar-vocal sparring between Blackmore and Gillan on Strange Kind Of Woman, the positively progressive vibe of The Mule, before Ian Paice's epic drum solo kicks in, Gillan showing exactly why he gained the proud title of silver-throated screamer on Child In Time and Glover's often under acknowledged bass-lines underpinning each song like a network of steel girders. The list goes on... As if that isn't enough, the reissue also includes three bonus live tracks Strange Kind Of Woman, Smoke On The Water and Space Truckin recorded in New York (at Hofstra University, Hempstead, Long Island, to be precise) on May 29th, 1973. Not to mention an inful interview piece from Purple's 1971 Australian tour. Copenhagen 1972 is the second of a 10 releases spanning re-issue series of Deep Purple.

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