Description

The phenomenon now known as Arena Rock was born at the California Jam ndashand Deep Purple were at its epicenter. In many ways, the California Jam was the equivalent of the Woodstock festival to a burgeoning generation of hard rock and heavy metal fans. The Jam took place at the Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, California on a hot and sunny spring day on April 6, 74. The event attracted an enormous crowd of a quartermillion people and represented a baptism of fire ndash in more ways than one ndash for Purples new boys, frontman David Coverdale and bassistvocalist Glenn Hughes, who in 73 had replaced Ian Gillan and Roger Glover, respectively, to usher in the bands socalled Mk III lineup.Deep Purple were literally on fire during that time due to some behind the scenes ldquofeudrdquo with the promoter, Deep Purplersquos performance was full of fire and fury ndash no wonder their opening song was ldquoBurnrdquo. At the climax of the show, a stillfurious Blackmore trashed several of his guitars and chucked his amplifiers off the edge of the stage. Blackmore also struck one of the cameras with his guitar. The chaos continued when a massive onstage detonation created an outofcontrol fireball ndash pun most definitely intended. In the midst of all this mayhem there was also some awesome music being created. Purples set focused strongly on their thencurrent ldquoBurnrdquo album, the first by the Mk III lineup and only included a handful of songs from the previous Mk II era.Even in 2016, Glenn Hughes has very vivid memories of Deep Purples tempestuousCalifornia Jam performance ldquoIt was a moment in time for us all. It was a great statement of what rock was all about in that preMTV era. Its also a great testament to the Mk III lineup. Itrsquos big, itrsquos grandiose, itrsquos funky, itrsquos rockhellip itrsquos Mk III in all its glory.rdquo Deep Purple DVD is available for home delivery from Vinyl Records London, only £11.6