Made in Europe

by Stephen Raiteri This live recording, made in 1975, comes from Ritchie Blackmore's last three concerts with the band before leaving to form Rainbow. It features Deep Purple Mark III, with David Coverdale on vocals and Glenn Hughes on bass and vocals. Coverdale is a convincing hard rock singer, though he lacks the winning quirkiness of Ian Gillan, while Hughes is a busier and more up-front player than Roger Glover. While "Burn" and "Mistreated" are worthy successors to previous Deep Purple tunes, the remaining material is weaker, and overall, this stuff is definitely a couple of notches below the glory days of Made in Japan. But Blackmore, for his swan song, still manages to inject a good deal of excitement, and his invention and fire raise the proceedings up somewhat.