Product Details

• Actors: Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice
• Directors: Hugh Symonds
• Producers: Heinz Henn, Lana Topham
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Bmg Special Product
• DVD Release Date: May 29, 2001
• Run Time: 124 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005NNSM
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #104,828 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Deep Purple - Come Hell Or High Water" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Studio: Bmg Special Products Release Date: 06/26/2001 Run time: 120 minutes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Best Of Times, The Worst Of Times, August 16, 2001

By 

Peter C. Jones "drumboy" (Aurora, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Deep Purple - Come Hell Or High Water (DVD)

Anytime Deep Purple does something, one has to ask, "O.K. which lineup is it this time?". Well "this time" it is the classic MK II lineup of Gillian, Lord, Glover, Paice and Blackmore. This will always be the real Deep Purple and any other lineup is second rate. After watching 2 hours of music, it is again clear that this lineup will always be the most powerful and its most unstable.

Tempers and attitudes are hot and so is the music. Ritchie is well, Ritchie and after he decides to show up, he proves why he is who he is and Deep Purple is always the better for it. Ritchie's playing is fierce and percussive. As good as Steve Morse is, he will never have the one thing that makes Ritchie burn, HIS EGO! As the interviews state, Ritchie is a nightmare to work with and is disruptive in everyway. But, it translates on stage to nothing less than a nuclear war as he and the rest of the band prove that they still have the goods and we the listener benefit greatly!

The set list is impressive and the sound quality is outstanding. Gillian and Lord are wonderful and Ian Paice is well, the best. Age has tamed them a little as will happen but they were so good to start with that even a slowed down Purple is better than most.

So the struggle plays out before our eyes, the Band vs. Blackmore. Back and forth, hook and jab! It is clearly the worst of times for the band but it turns out to be the best of times for us!

Enjoy this classic concert and remember the power and the attitude because they never regained it after this! I very much enjoy the Morse stuff, but it can't touch Deep Purple with Ritchie Balckmore.

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars See Ritchie pout!!, August 12, 2001

By 

Mark Bumgardner (Concord, NC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deep Purple - Come Hell Or High Water (DVD)

If you ever wanted to see the inner-workings of a hard rock band, the DVD of Deep Purple's "Come Hell or High Water" is a great place to start. For anyone who's followed this band since their 70s hayday, this should be pretty fasinating viewing. The song selection is solid, and the sound and picture are what you would expect from a DVD. Ironically (and somewhat unfortunately), the most captivating aspect - for me anyway - is watching the interaction (or lack of it) between Ritchie Blackmore and his other Purple bandmates. Filmed on the 1993 tour, this is the DP line-up most fans consider to be the strongest of its many incarnations. It is evident from the start however, that Mr. Blackmore would rather be doing something else. As the concert begins with Highway Star, Blackmore is nowhere to be seen - at least on camera. About 2/3 of the way into the song, he appears with great fanfare (and a somewhat derisive bow from Ian Gillian), plays a short solo, hits a few bum notes and goes into a petulant frenzy - shoving crew members and throwing water on one of the cameras. And this is only a few minutes into the show! Off camera interviews with Jon Lord, Ian Paice and Roger Glover give the impression that Ritchie's little tantrums have more than worn out their welcome. Lord talks honestly about having to take up Blackmore's slack, and Glover sums it up nicely when he states he felt both furious and sad for Blackmore. All in all, this is really a decent concert video, with Lord, Paice and Glover more than making up for Blackmore's choice to just go through the motions. Gillian is in good form, hitting most of the notes he reached so easily 20 years earlier. At 120 minutes, any Purple fan will be pleased with the generosity of songs chosen. The tracks are split fairly evenly between 70s favorites and stronger cuts from the line-up's early 90s reunion. I still prefer this to the recent "Albert Hall/Concerto" DVD, but at least Steve Morse comes to play every night, and saves his tantrums for off camera. It's pretty obvious from watching this why Blackmore left soon after it was filmed. It's also pretty obvious that DP is better off without him.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Hell Came And Its Name Was Blackmore, September 28, 2006

By 

Sky (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Deep Purple - Come Hell Or High Water (DVD)

Only 3 stars for Come Hell or High Water is almost being harsh. But Blackmore's behavior during the concert is so outrageous that I was embarrassed for the band just watching the show. I feel sorry for the fans that actually paid to attend the concert who were probably very excited to see a Deep Purple show where all 5 members participated.

But really only 4 participated. Those 4 being Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Ian Paice, and Jon Lord. Those guys must have huddled before the show and said, "let's give these fans a musical performance that they'll never forget." Whether Blackmore was in the huddle with them or not, one thing is for sure, Blackmore agreed to also give the fans an experience that they'll never forget, but the experience that he provided was how to be a complete jackass...not the experience of the guitar performances that he is legend for.

The back jacket of the DVD reads, "No one who has heard Deep Purple kick off a show with Highway Star will ever forget it...." Well, I sure won't forget how it was done on this DVD. The band comes out on stage, starts the song, but something's missing...Blackmore is missing! The first minute of the song goes by, but there's no Blackmore; there's no guitar playing; only vocals, keys, bass and drums. At first I thought it was a some sort of prestaged thing where Blackmore would appear with much fanfare. Well, he finally does appear where the guitar solo is supposed to come in, but not with much fanfare. Blackmore is clearly pissed about something and is determined to let everyone in the band and audience know it. He walks on stage, saunters over to the amps, grabs a cup of water that is sitting there, flings it through the air, looks at the other guys in the band as if to say, "take-that!", and then he feebly proceeds to play a horrible version of the Highway Star solo. The other guys in the band are visibly exasperated and just roll their eyes.

After Highway Star, the DVD breaks to a quick video interview with Gillian, Paice, Lord and Glover where they comment on how something wasn't working between them that night at the Birmingham NEC, UK, on November 9, 1993, and that Blackmore, as he was known to often do, acted "like an angry little child when he didn't get his way about something".

Clearly, Blackmore indeed didn't get his way about something for the recording of this DVD. The tension on stage was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Blackmore was conspicuously absent from the stage and absent from playing throughout the whole show, and that really took away from the performance. Instead of rocking out through the DVD, I'm sitting there the whole time going, geez what a shame. To be fair, things were working with everyone in the band except just one guy. Gillian, Paice, Lord and Glover did indeed play like it was 1972...they were on.

The song list was terrific. They play:

1-Highway Star
2-Black Night
3-Talk About Love
4-Twist in the Tale
5-Perfect Strangers (Blackmore almost looked as if he njoyed being there for this song.)
6-Beethoven
7-Knocking at Your Back Door
8-Anyone's Daughter
9-Child in Time
10-Anya
11-The Battle Rages On
12-Lazy
13-Space Truckin'
14-Woman from Tokyo
15-Paint It Black
16-Smoke on the Water.

Blackmore couldn't wait to get off the stage. He walked right off after Smoke On The Water...exit stage left; the other guys took some bows and exited stage right.

For a 1993 recording, the picture was above average and the sound was very good. You get a superb Dolby 5.1 mix. But the picture quality was brought down a bit by the lighting choice throughout the show; it was as if consideration the night of the show was not given to the fact that the show would be recorded for DVD. The editing was great; you really got to take in each angle before the shot changed.

With the short interviews (spliced in between songs instead of as an extra feature which kind of took away from the live performance illusion) the DVD is an even 2 hours long. There were no Blackmore interviews.

It was great to reminisce and watch a Deep Purple show. The performances were a 5 by Gillian, Paice, Lord and Glover; Blackmore gets a 1. Sound is a 4. Picture is a 3. The long shots of the band in action before changing angle makes up for the choice to put the interviews between songs instead of at the end or as an extra...so the editing is a 3. Hence, 3 stars overall.