CALIFORNIA JAMMING

Well, having heard the masterpiece and one of the best and powerful live albums ever, "Made In Japan", I thought this could be so much better. In addition, I had some expectations to hear how Coverdale sings Gillan songs, and how is Hughes bass playing and contributions with vocals during the show. I found some problems while listening this, first of all, the bad quality sound, it seems like a bad bootleg, confusing sounds and a low guitar sound (except during the Riff of Smoke On The Water), anyway the sound got less confusing and better when I used headphones, but not that better to say the sound is good, sadly; the other one was the extensive and no direction jamming, it's sad to say this, but it seems like a noisy jam ... in difference to "Made In Japan", which was the complete opposite. The CD contains six tracks: it starts with "Burn", which I think it's a very good version, but I can't hear the genius guitar solo (there's an organ solo, in difference to the studio version); then go "Might Just Take Your Life" and the blues "Mistreated", two 'new' songs, but the sound is so confusing I can't really enjoy them; then goes "Smoke On The Water", which is surprisingly played (during the intro) in E instead of G, then Blackmore 'fixes' the problem (obviously he did it in purpose), oh rockers, what a strange moment ! This one is very well sang by Coverdale, but the guitar solo is veeeery different, seems like Ritchie was drunk while playing it, sadly; then goes another 'new' song, "No Fool On Me", which has extensive jamming and a good demostration to show Coverdale's vocal habilities (and Glenn too), this version is so much longer because then goes the wild drum solo on "The Mule", once again, Ian Paice doing an excellent job; to finish we've "Spacetruckin' ", which has again a long, long and noisy jam with a guitar solo in the middle, but not as enjoyable or rocker as on the previous live album ...

Maybe I was expecting too much, while comparing it to "Made In Japan", but the songs go unnecesary long, and the sound quality is not the best, so this is for collectors or Deep Purple fans (like me) only.

Rating: 2.0/5