Description

2006 release on double cd

This superb live recording was made at the Stockholm Konserthuset on November 12th 1970. Deep Purple had just started touring their huge hit album ‘In Rock’ round Europe and the show includes three extended versions of tracks from that, along with two instrumental showcase numbers (which together run for over half an hour) and their then newly released chart single ‘Black Night’. The show later surfaced on bootlegs but it wasn’t until 1988 that the recording was issued officially under the title ‘Scandinavian Nights’ (now deleted). Recently however the original four track masters were rediscovered and the sound was so good that it was decided to reissue the entire show in a fully remixed version on Purple Records, taking advantage of the latest digital equipment to bring out the best from this archive recording. For many Deep Purple fans, this era – the Mk 2 line-up fronted by singer Ian Gillan and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore – represents the absolute apex of the band, and this is a stunning reminder of just how powerful a band they were at the time. The Deep Purple Appreciation Society recently posted a first reaction to the album: ‘It’s just astonishingly intense in places. The balance takes a little while to settle down at the start of ‘Speed King’ but once they’re over that hurdle, the band members just seem to be pushing all the time. I found myself totally wrapped up in the first verse of ‘Child In Time’, trying to take it all in. It was like being at a live gig. Instrumentally it just pulls the listener in as they get harder and heavier. I began asking myself whether this was the best section of live Deep Purple I’d ever heard on disc. Were I to try and decide between this and ‘Made In Japan’, well – I just hope I never have to!’

Track list:
1. Introduction
2. Speed King
3. Into The Fire
4. Child In Time
5. Wring That Neck
6. Black Night
7. Mandrake Root
8. Black Night