NEC 1993

The cashing machine is on its way...But this time it is more the record company than the band who is to be criticized for this. Ian Gillan even told the fans NOT to buy this work. He declared in 2006: it is an unfortunate reminder of one of their worst ever concerts, himself and Ritchie were barely on speaking terms at the time of the concert, and admitted: It was one of the lowest points of my life - all of our lives, actually.

Gillan continued: In fact, it lasted five or six shows after that Birmingham show. Then Ritchie left the band. And we've had 13 years of stability ever since then.

This double CD set is actually the first leg of four CD set called "Live In Europe" which was the recording of two concerts (one in Birmingham recorded on November 9th, 1993) while the second one was recorded in Stuttgart (October 16th, 1993) It was during the supporting tour for the album The Battle Rages On. In 1994, the Purple released already Come Hell or High Water Live which was comprising tracks from both concerts.

Globally, these two shows were very similar. In terms of track list: only a few ones vary (three additional songs are available from the Stuttgart concert: a short version of The Mule (just over two minutes) !, a cover for the ELO track In The Hall Of The Mountain King (under two minutes) ! and Speed King. All the other numbers are similar (the running order as well). The main difference resides in the length of the songs (longer in Stuttgart for almost all of them). In all, I would say that it would have been more interesting to release the Stuttgart one instead.

Anyway, there are a lot of classic included here and a few rare moments. Highway Star intro has a pretty bad sound (for about two minutes, but then is fixed) and it is almost the last occasion (but not the last one) to listen to the great "Child In Time", which is heavily rendered here.

What else do you need to know?

Oh yes. A miracle happened during this tour: Space Truckin' tune is cut down to less than three minutes: at last a normal (even shorter than the studio version !) rendition for this song. Purple used to extend it to anything between fifteen to thirty-five minutes!

IMO, the most interesting song, is their cover for Paint It, Black. While in the beginning of their Mark II era this song was played as a pure instrumental featuring a long drum solo (you can hear this on Live In Aachen and on Scandinavian Nights), the band is playing it more in accordance with the original here (leaving their hard rock blue print of course).

It seems though that the cutting affair was a habit during this tour: Woman From Tokyo is shortened down to just over two minutes, which is a pain.

The version for Hush is quite good (as always under the Mark II) but I would not say so about Smoke: we get a loooong karaoke session which is quite dispensable.

In all, this live recording only slightly differs from "Come Hell or High Water" and should therefore only be of interest to die-hard fans. Two stars.