Here are a few images from our recent tour of the US and Canada.
There were three bands on the bill and we all got along famously, a great deal of mutual respect around. Thin Lizzy were true professionals, always giving 100%. Joe Satriani needs little introduction from me, his stage presence is riveting and the members of his band great musicians all.
This a tour of seventeen cities spread across parts of what was, until relatively recently, known as the Soviet Union and now called Russia and the Ukraine. As I write this, we are roughly at the halfway point and not yet in the Ukraine.
Because of the vast distances, we are traveling on our own chartered, three-engined plane, a YAK 42, and it’s really quite easy.
I’d like to thank all those good souls who braved the elements and came to see us over the recent tour of Asia. I’d like to, but I can’t (just kidding).
I know that we in Deep Purple all had a great time, some memorable gigs that don’t come to mind right now, some great audiences and smiling faces everywhere. It’s not so bad.
Well, it’s been a while. Some would say an era, others have probably not noticed, but it’s about time I wrote a report. Indeed I haven’t really noticed; time has a way of inexorably tick-tocking away when one is living ‘in the moment’ and usually out of a suitcase. I am writing this from the land of the rising sun, where this particular moment is more like the land of the falling rain – a wet afternoon in Tokyo.
The Bananas tour unpeeled its way across Europe through November and December, with much success. The start, in Barcelona, seems distant now. We covered a lot of ground and spent many an hour on the tour bus. People, quite naturally, wonder what we do on it. Well, there are bunks, a small kitchen, TV and video, a back lounge and a front lounge, which is set up like a train carriage, with tables.