MADE IN JAPAN

Wow! What a great live sound. So raw, yet everyting can be heard clearly! All the five musicians are on brilliant form, and special credit to Blackmore, Lord, Gillan, Paice and Glover (Oooops I mean the whole band then). These are one of those bands who are all virtuosos at heir particular instruments (other examples are Rush, CTTE era Yes, and The Who).

'Highway Star' begins the show with a bang and is pulled of exceptionally well. 'Child in Time' then explodes forth mindblowingly. It stays faithful to the original, but doesn't quite capture the right mood. If ever there was a live tack that blew the studio version out of the water one only has to look to this version of 'Smoke on the Water'. As the main riff is belted out and improvised upon, one can shake off all their preconceptions of this song as a hard rock cliche. 'The Mule' starts off pretty average but once Paie goes crazy on the drum set it is amazing. 'Strange Kind of Woman' is a brilliant song as it is but in the middle of this version includes a guitar/vocal duel which is simply stunning (if not slightly self indulgent). 'Lazy' is another great song, but I slightly prefer the studio version. 'Space Truckin'' falls nothing short of amazing. The core of the song is only the first five minutes of this version, and the remaining fifteen are taken up by a wild improvisation with brilliant solos and especially brilliant drumming. This is really totally self indulgent but who cares when such amazing results are achieved?

Let's also mention the bonus disc (not on original album) which while not being as good as the album main includes strong versions of 'Nlack Night', 'Speed King' and Little Richard's 'Lucille'.

I'm going to knock off a star for 'Lazy' and 'Child in Time' not being quite as good as the studio versions, and I won't take the second CD into account as it wasn't part of the original release. I'm no connoseur of live albums but I know good music when I hear it, and this is it. So, can we have everything louder than everything else please?