News flash: huge and unexpected breaking news, encountered AFTER I posted this: Ritchie Blackmore has joined Deep Purple onstage for the first time in decades!!! The following piece does not reflect that. Footage here:
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I've been perusing the Deep Purple setlists for 2026 in advance of their September Abbotsford show. Spoiler alert for this post -- I'm going to spill some possible secrets; but I needed to know what new songs I need to know before I see them, to get maximum effect of the live performance (and to not spend the whole set hoping they'll do this-or-that song; best work my way through any disappointments before the concert even begins. Of course, things change, so we cannot set any expectations in stone, so disappointments might change into pleasant surprises if the band actually decides to do a hoped-for song). Anyhow, reader beware: If you don't want to know what they (probably) will or won't be playing, that's your perogative, but I personally like going to big shows having done a little homework.
Needless to say, most of the expected must-plays are all there ("Highway Star" trumps "Smoke on the Water" for me, but I grew up with all those songs and am very excited to see them played live; and "Space Truckin'" will be a hoot to see. "Lazy" is being played often of late, too!). My history with this stuff dates back to a legendary find in the dumpster of the Maple Ridge condo that I grew up in, of about fifty LPs, including Deep Purple's Made in Japan; I was maybe nine or ten years old, and it was my first exposure not just to Deep Purple, but also Aerosmith, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and Nazareth, as I recall. One of my most formative musical experiences began in a dumpster!!! Delighted that I'm going to hear four songs off that album played live.
However, in terms of classic live Purple cuts, there's no "Child in Time", and it sure looks like they've dropped "Black Night" off recent setlists -- it does pop up at the very end of a few shows of late, but only a few, so we will be lucky to get it. Have grown very fond of that song -- even bought a greatest hits comp because that's the only way to get the studio version, since it was released as a non-album single; but it's on every live Purple album I've heard, so I'm mildly surprised it's not gettin' the love.
And they likely won't be doing my favourite deep cut, "Pictures of Home", off Machine Head, on this tour, which is no big surprise, because they seldom do it; ditto my second-favourite Deep Purple deep cut, "Mary Long", which is hands-down the funniest song inspired in part by Mary Whitehouse (whose name is cross-cut with that of another moral crusader of yore, Lord Longford). Whitehouse is also one of the pigs in Pink Floyd's "Pigs (Three Different Kinds)" -- the "house proud town mouse" -- and the subject of the Adicts' delightful "Mary Whitehouse". But the line in "Mary Long" directed at Whitehouse about how the band "never knew you had it in you" is a kind of genius-level bit of rude wordplay. If I got to chat with Gillan (fat chance), that's what I'd ask him about: did she ever respond to that lyric?
There's an interesting article about that song here, but again, we won't be hearing it, so don't pay it any mind if prep is what you are after.
But "Into the Fire", the sole song off Deep Purple In Rock, will be VERY fun to see live -- that is a link to superb footage of the band playing that from TWO YEARS BEFORE ERIKA WAS BORN (!). (The band actually formed in March of 1968, which was my birth month; she came along in August of 1973). I'm still working with "When a Blind Man Cries," another tune on recent setlists and a b-side deep cut from the Machine Head sessions that, like "Pictures of Home", never got played back in the day because Richie Blackmore disliked it, apparently. It's the perfect example of why I like to do some homework, so I can work my way around to grokking the tune before I'm seeing it played live; not quite sure it has sunk its hook yet.
In terms of stuff NOT being played: there's nothing off the Steve Morse studio albums, which spanned a very long time in the band's career; he joined in 1995 and recorded his last album with them in 2021. I only know a few songs from that span anyhow -- mostly I know Morse from live recordings -- though I do quite like Whoosh! (which dovetails with SPLAT! as an onomatopoetic album title). So we won't get "Nothing At All," say -- my favourite of the Morse studio output -- but we didn't expect that one so whatevs. Ditto "Vincent Price", which is the Purple song that most reminds me of the Blue Oyster Cult (specifically "Joan Crawford", for obvious reasons). It's kind of a shame the band has just dropped all that material off their setlists, since they've been on a very productive streak since they started working with Bob Ezrin in 2012 (not all of which do I know, but everything I've heard is totally solid and worthy of their legacy). But there's basically a black hole in their live setlist from 1972 (after Machine Head) to 2024 (with another weirdly-titled but solid album, =1, which was their first with current guitarist Stuart McBride).
But =1 is great! "Lazy Sod" dovetails with "Lazy" and touches on global warming. "A Bit on the Side" is another good one that has followed "Highway Star" on recent sets. My own favourite on =1 is "Portable Door", which I don't think they'll do, but I like both those songs just fine. (Fun intro to the song from Gillan in that linked clip, though the audience is pretty shouty).
Then there's SPLAT!, which, again, I need to spend more time with, though I like it just fine. They have three songs on recent setlists off that,"Arrogant Boy", "Diablo", and "Scriblin Gib'rish". There is also one instrumental outtake from the album that they've been using live with a portmanteau title between "Guinness" and "Genesis", "Guinnesis".
I assume Gillan is the band's resident punster and the man who comes up with titles like Whoosh! and SPLAT! My own creativity has never been much stoked by Guinness, if that' what I presume "Guinesis" is referring to, but it's one of those few alcoholic beverages that I still allow myself, occasionally, post-tongue cancer. (It does seem to be a great digestive aid but I don't think that's the kind of creativity the band is thinking of!).
I'm pretty excited about this show, really. I've seen very few of the BIG rockers of the 60s: Neil Young, Black Sabbath, and now Deep Purple. Their live stuff has been in heavy rotation with me for a few months now and my respect for them has grown immeasurably -- one realizes that for an epochal band, they're kind of under-rated, and have a catalogue of really cool material behind them -- it's not all "Smoke".
As for the openers, Jefferson Starship only includes one member of Jefferson Airplane, David Freiberg, who joined the band in 1974, which is after the period of the band that I have paid mind to previously. Donny Baldwin goes back to an early incarnation of Starship, having started in 1982, though he had time away from the band in-between. There will definitely be some Jefferson Airplane material, as well as Starship material, in their set. It is hard to imagine songs like "White Rabbit", "Volunteers" and "Somebody to Love" (all enduring rock classics, if not particular favourites of mine) alongside 80s cheese like "We Built This City", shoehorned into the same setlist, but that does seem to be what we will be hearing, plus maybe a new song (nothing off 2020's Mother of the Sun, though, their most recent studio venture). I think that's all I'm going to say there -- I do not want to pre-judge them, will go with an open mind (can one have both an open mind and low expectations?). "We Built This City" was a song I remember finding incredibly annoying when it was on the radio, back when it first came out, but maybe a warm glow of nostalgia will surround it now?
On the other hand, I might pick up a Best of Kansas LP (or a copy of Leftoverture?) if one can be had cheaply. Of course, I know "Dust in the Wind" and "Carry on Wayward Son" from classic rock radio, and neither embrace them nor reject them: they aren't favourites, have never prompted me to buy a Kansas record, but nor do I switch stations if they come on in the car (or ask Erika to... it's her car!). I think of them as good songs in a genre ("mildy proggy 70s soft rock") that I tend to ignore. In fact, other songs like "Miracles Out of Nowhere" that I'm hearing now for the first time, based on my setlist peek, are kinda appealing: check out the instrumental break mid-way through that song! I hadn't realized until just now that they'd carried on (heh) to record cheesy 80s anthems like "Fight Fire With Fire," and tend to spend even less time on that sort of mass-appeal arena rock, but maybe it will be fun live?
As for the band's roster, while 70s drummer Phil Ehart and guitarist Rich Williams are still listed as members, they apparently either don't tour or tour infrequently, both having had health issues. The longest-lasting member in the band we'll be seeing seems to be Ronnie Platt, who has been keyboardist and vocalist since 2014. I don't know. Again, I will set my expectations to the none-to-slight range and hope to be pleasantly surprised.
Given both those bands multiple member-replacements, it makes it all the more impressive that 3/5ths of the lineup of Deep Purple that we'll be seeing goes back to the Mach II days, with Gillan, Glover, and Paice all on board (drummer Paice is from the first version of the band, founded in 1968, while Gillan and Glover go back to 1969). Jon Lord has a great excuse for missing this show; his replacement, keyboardist Don Airey, goes back to 2002 and is very able. The only LIVING-but-missing member from the classic Mach II lineup is, of course, Ritchie Blackmore, but he's been on the outs with the band since 1993, and, I mean, you need say no more than that the hated "Pictures of Home" and refused to do it live to convince me that the dude is difficult to work with. When a certain nameless punk of repute in Vancouver has griped to me about the daft, juvenile aspect of Deep Purple's lyrics ("Highway Star", "Space Truckin'" -- like rock lyrics aren't ever allowed to be daft or juvenile!), "Pictures of Home" has been my retort. It's the most Nietzschean rock song ever written: we Hyperboreans understand!
Tickets to the show here. Gonna see Deep Purple! Whee!
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