Live At Montreaux [Best of, Live]

This is simply the Best Live Steve Morse era Live recording available.

Some may feel that "Total Abandon" is better but it doesn't seem to be available as a cd anymore. The mastering on this cd has a glorious crisp sound. Gillan hits every note, including the high note in the second chorus during Woman from Tokyo, and he hits it good! Jon Lord is having a great night very tight and fearless. Steve Morse again very tight and fearless. Glover and Paice are clearly enjoying themselves as they swing through this thunderous set. The DVD should be equally great. I have all of their live stuff from the Morse era ( the Bootleg Box , the Soundboard box and all the DVDS) and I can say that this tops all of them. Both the '1996 and '2000 songs are great. No cringing on these performances at all. Please do yourself a favor and plug this in ,light up a cigar and let the speakers shake your house in glorious Purple fashion.

Of the myriad of Deep Purple live albums recorded over the years, this is one of my favorites and it's perhaps the one most responsible for me becoming a diehard Steve Morse fan (most definitely reinforced by having a front row seat in front of Steve at a recent Minneapolis show.) I like Blackmore's work, but Morse is so liltingly melodic and is able to alternate between heavy rock chops and incredibly delicate melody lines like almost nobody else. On this album the band is in fine form, with nary a stray note. Gillan hits the high notes with joyous abandon and turns in one the most soulful performance ever recorded on "When a Blind Man Cries;" Glover and Paice have a great time as the legendary Purple rhythm section, and Jon Lord is in top form.

My favorites on the CD are "When a Blind Man Cries" which has superlative interplay between band members, particularly Morse and Gillan, a totally smoking version of "No One Came" which completely justifies the price of the CD by itself, and of course the incomparable classic "Smoke on the Water," recorded in the birthplace of the song, Montreux. (How cool would it be to see Deep Purple at the Montreux festival?)

The album clearly deserves five stars, but I briefly considered four for some noticeable audio hiss that's sadly in the middle of Morse's amazing solo on "When a Blind Man Cries" (the louder the volume the more obvious it becomes.) In the end I couldn't bear the thought of giving this amazing show any less than five stars and encourage music lovers everywhere to buy this CD, which is arguably the best live Morse-era live recording.

Deep Purple release a huge number of live albums - this is the third from the 1996 European tour I own (Live Encounters and Live At The Olympia are the other two). While too much Deep Purple is rarely enough, this set is a ripper. Ten tracks from a festival appearance (plus, confusingly, two bonus tracks from 2000 at the same venue), well recorded, the band in top form, and Steve Morse demonstrating the style that makes him a worthy Deep Purple guitarist. I buy almost everything Deep Purple put out, and I was very impressed with this one. Recommended.