Concert Review : Deep Purple - Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow

Now that we're in a situation where Steve Morse has played more gigs as a member of Deep Purple than Ritchie Blackmore, it's probably long past the situation to consider him the "new boy" but it's always apparent from reading the views of fans that the spectre of Blackmore continues to loom large in their thoughts and opinions of the band.

Any new Purple material is always subject to comparison to their classic period and often held to be inferior. Notwithstanding that precisely the same standard if applied to the Blackmore-era reunion albums would result in the same conclusion. Indeed, if pressed I'd suggest that the best album by any post-reunion album would be the Morse-era debut Purpendicular. A better, fresher album than its' only near competitor Perfect Strangers.

That these two albums represent the first offerings of the respective line-ups from their respective time periods probably says something about the challenge faced by Purple. They do seem to find it hard to sustain a consistent level of creativity to match the burst that produced In Rock, Fireball and Machine Head in the 1970's.

That's not a unique problem to Purple - many bands of a similar age fact the same issues but it does mean that in the case of Deep Purple it is difficult for them to step out of the shadow of the Man In Black.

That leaves live performance as the main arena in which the band can continue to breathe and thrive. And they continue to do so as this performance in Glasgow on 11th November demonstrated.

Whilst the band were reinvigorated by the addition of Steve Morse, they have over recent years had a tendency to slip into the old bad habit of resting too heavily on familiar material and especially Machine Head. This time around the setlist showed some more variation with some welcome additions in No One Came (from Fireball) along with the return of the one true classic from the Morse era which genuinely stands shoulder to shoulder with anything from Purple's heyday in Sometime I Feel Like Screaming. We also got Wasted Sunsets and Not Responsible from Perfect Strangers - not necessarily the top of anyones list of songs they'd like to hear performed but welcome for that lack of obviousness.

The band played as well as I've seen for a while, although Gillan was clearly struggling with some of the higher notes. This is not uncommon in recent shows, but I'm at a loss why he continues to attempt to scream when his voice in normal register remains so strong.

Morse clearly continues to enjoy playing the old material and avoids simply replicating Blackmore's style bringing a different style to the songs. The other new boy, Don Airey is now being more adventurous having taken a few years to settle comfortably into the position previously held by Jon Lord. Nowadays, the band switch between keyboard and guitar rather as they did in their earlier years, before Blackmore's domination chipped away at that magic ingredient.

Paice and Glover continue to be the rock rhythm section par excellence. One notable item missing was Paice's drum solo - not necessarily a bad thing as drum solos are often an indulgence despite the excellence of the player - but I would equally have welcomed the absence of the guitar and keyboard solo slots in favour of a couple more songs.

Ian Gillan told us that the band would be recording a new album in 2010. It's five years since Rapture Of The Deep which was an enjoyable but not essential album. I'd like to hope that the gap can result in stronger material that can produce an album that can rival Purpendicular.