Made In Europe (Live) - Deep Purple > Reviews > Retrospectively this wasn't a good album

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Standard
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Weak
Value for Money

Advantages:	None that I can think of  -  oh it's Deep Purple, that has to be one !  The songs are OK but .  .  .
Disadvantages:	Shoddy production, poor mixing, badly "hashed together" tracks, not worth the money

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

This album was released at a turbulent spot in Deep Purple's history - Mark II (with Gillan and Glover) had broken up and the new team (with Coverdale and Hughes now fronting the band) weren't too comfortable with each other. This album seems rushed and badly mixed and altogether shoddily "hashed together" to fit a single LP.

Make no mistake, the music is quality, as always with the group; a different, more bluesy feel to the Burn tracks and a more upbeat, heavy rock sound to the Stormbringer pairing. But the post-production fails this album miserably.

The set opens with Burn, a stalwart opener of Mark III's set. Blackmore seems on fire, the playing is tight, and the band seem to be gelling. But the sound is flat, weak and wimpish sounding, which is not exactly what a heavy rock band needs. We progress to Mistreated, a blues rock number about "everday life, everday things that 'appen to us" as Hughes once announced. This is definitely one of my favourites of the Mark III set. A beautiful vocal glides perfectly into the touching solo, which changes quickly into a heavy, angry one half way through.
The next track, "Lady Double Dealer" is the first of the new "Stormbringer" tracks we hear. It is quite a solid track, upbeat but understated and you could be left with the feeling that it could have been something more.
"You Fool No One", another stalwart from "Burn" is greatly expanded on when played live, but here we hear two or three versions cut together, and even then we don't hear the full 16 or so minutes of the track, only 13 minutes approximately.
The 'set' (in quotes, I will explain in a minute) closes with the title track from "Stormbringer", a heavy, blunt edged song but nonetheless a good track.

This 'set' is composed of tracks from the last three concerts that Mark III played, in Switzerland and France; when I say the 'set' is composed of these concerts, I really mean each track itself is mixed from the three different concerts, which leaves me personally feeling a bit let down, as I would like to have heard the proper versions as they were played.

For those of you who want a good concert set to listen to, you should buy "MkIII The Final Concerts" of which this album is culled. It is the full setlist from the last two concerts I believe, and as such contains duplicates of a couple of tracks, but also includes an excellent, touching rendition of "Gypsy" from "Stormbringer", another of my favourite songs.

Overall a disappointment, but you can't blame the band for it, yet again it was poor production (like Last Concert in Japan). I still can't give this album more than two stars and I'm having great difficulty making choices from each of the categories to describe it!