Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Ian Gillan, earMUSIC 2019.
Ian Gillan is best known as the voice of Deep Purple, one of the most recognisable and influential sounds in hard rock.
As well as his work with Deep purple he has also forged an impressive solo career and his live shows are in high demand and have been praised for their quality and energy.
Contractual Obligations is a live album recorded on a tour through Eastern Europe with a full rock show, accompanied at every performance by a different local orchestra.
Gillan recruited The Don Airey Band, which included the amazing guitar talents of Simon McBride, as his show band and they produced outstanding performances night after night playing a mixture of Deep Purple and Gillan solo hits including some rarities such as the little played Purple song Razzle Dazzle.
The quality of the performances are remarkably good for a live album and the audiences are right into it.
The inclusion of the orchestras transforms some well-known songs bringing a freshness to old material.
I saw Deep Purple when they last toured our shores and at that time Gillan was vocally suffering at the end of an extensive world tour and having difficulty hitting the high notes for which he is best known.
He has no such problems on this tour. He’s in the best form that I’ve heard him in a long time, and consequently we’re getting him at near his best.
And the band is really hot.
Simon McBride pulls out all stops on the Purple classic Lazy and Don Airey on keyboards is phenomenal.
There’s an interesting and eclectic mix of tracks on the disc from Deep Purple classics such as Lazy to eastern inspired grooves such as Rapture Of The Deep and the blues of When A Blind Man Cries.
You can sense the fun that Gillan is having as he responds to some of the incredible playing around him.
At one point he sings a short duet with his daughter Grace who is singing backing vocals in the band.
The album closes with Difficult To Cure, a reworking of Beethoven’s Ninth which Gillan credits to Airey, Blackmore and Beethoven.
