Review of Deep Purple: Perihelion

Introduction

Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of being at the SECC in Glasgow to see Deep Purple play live, a show delayed from earlier this year due to illness. Given that the band are one of the most famous, long lived and commercially successful rock bands of all time, I expected the concert to be excellent, and it exceeded my expectations.

The sound was loud but beautifully clear with Ian Gillan`s sounding incredible. Musically, the band were superb, with Glover, Paice and Morse exceptional throughout. The great Jon Lord has now retired, replaced by Don Airey, but Lord came to Glasgow and played for some of the concert, receiving a huge welcome from the crowd. Other highlights included an appearance by Dan McCafferty of Nazareth, who came onstage for a brief rendition of Love Hurts.

This DVD was recorded earlier in the tour, before Jon Lord retired, so there Don Airey isn`t on display, and the setlist is similar to that played at Glasgow, although for the classic Black Night doesn`t feature on the DVD. The Glasgow concert ended with Smoke on the Water, Black Night, Hush and Highway Star - four exceptional tracks.

Video

The video comes in full-frame, and is of above average quality, with a reasonably sharp picture which is free from dirt and grain. Despite much of the footage being quite dark, there are no signs of any compression problems.

Visually, the show is pretty much standard fare for concerts, with a limited light show and the band strutting their stuff on stage. As with the live show in Glasgow, there are quite a lot of solos from Paice, Morse and Lord, which gives the viewer plenty of opportunity to see top notch musicians play - Steve Morse is a truly exceptional guitar player, and Jon Lord`s keyboard skills are legendary.

Audio

The sound is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0 and DTS 5.1. The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is pretty good, although slightly lacking in bass delivery, but the vocals and instruments are all very clear. In comparison, the DTS 5.1 sound has more range and power, giving a sound closer to the real thing. The Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack is a little flat, and loses some of the vocal clarity of the multichannel soundtracks.

In the flesh, Deep Purple are very loud, with a powerful system providing volume and clarity. Obviously reproducing this scale of sound in your own home is rather difficult, but on a good system, the DTS 5.1 soundtrack is pretty good, and begs to be played loud.

There are many musical highlights on this disc, including many classic tunes. My personal favourites are Speed King, which comes with various solos in the middle, including a play-off between Morse and Lord, Smoke on the Water, Perfect Strangers and Highway Star.

Features

The extras include thirteen minutes of behind the scenes footage, which is quite interesting, and a series of interviews compiled into a twenty six minute program, with various entry points. These interviews are very interesting, and well worth watching.

Conclusion

With Ritchie Blackmore in a forest somewhere, wearing a long black coat, pointy hat and playing minstrel music, Deep Purple live on, with the excellent Steve Morse on guitar, more than capable of matching Blackmore`s genius. Given all of Deep Purple`s troubles over the years, it was a delight seeing everyone having such a good time on stage performing their songs.

As a Deep Purple fan, I was very pleased with this DVD, it features a good concert, well presented in terms of video and sound, with a good tracklisting, and good extras.

Overall, if you`ve been lucky enough to see Deep Purple tour, you`ll know what to expect and this DVD does a good job of delivering that experience into your home.

Recommended.