Stealing Deep Purple

The unbelievable true story of the Fake Deep Purple tour

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https://tinyurl.com/msmtazn5

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Steve McLean is a comedian and writer from Scotland, currently living in London.

His trilogy of shows based on merchandise (Action Figure Archive, Action Figure Archive Volume 2 and Action Figure Archive Retrosexual) made multiple top ten lists and toured internationally.

His favourite Deep Purple album is Come Taste the Band. He knows this will win him no favours among the hardcore.

The New Steppenwolf response….

One of the aims of this project (Stealing Deep Purple and the support blogs) has been to bring out the memories of people who were actually there.

In the Stealing Steppenwolf blog that I wrote for The New Vinyl Villain someone shared a lovely memory of attending a Goldy McJohn, Nick St Nicholas, Kent Henry led Steppenwolf. I’m republishing it below…. along with an advert for the gig that he attended (!) in Florida which I found during my research

Over to you, Roger

Roger That says:Don’t know how old this post is, but I saw the first variation of the “New” Steppenwolf pictured at the top. We’re talking 40+ years ago, but I was a huge Wolf fan back then and know for sure Goldy, Kent, Nick and Tom Pagan were in the version I saw. It was a summer festival-type thing with multiple bands held at the legendary Hollywood Sportatorium in South Florida. The Sportatorium was the place for the “big name” concerts back then. Elvin Bishop was the main headliner and there were a good 8-10 bands before him. The then unknown Jan Hammer (yes, the Miami Vice soundtrack guy) opened the show, I believe Southern rockers Lake were the second band – then Steppenwolf, the first well known act of the day/night.They opened with Sookie, Sookie after which the pretty sparse (1000 ppl?) early in the day crowd started chanting “WHERE’S JOHN KAY?!!” The band sounded so good the crowd took it easy on Pagan after a smokin’ version of Rock Me – the second song. They did a six or 7 song set of the classics (including the full 10 minute Monster) with band introductions and a little chit-chat in between. When they went into the Pusher, people started throwing joints and pills on stage (it was the late 70s) – Goldy came out from behind the organ to check a couple pills (he rejected) and then grabbed a big joint and lit up. The band members passed it around during the song. They were very tight and all the songs had the crowd jumping – loud chants for the obvious encore of Born to be Wild at the end. Felt like a real Steppenwold experience at the time, and even now – after 100s more rock shows – I still think they rocked the place.Didn’t see the John Kay rebooted Wolf until 5 or 6 years later. Have to say it was a bit of a disappointment. Over the years saw him many times and – for me at least – he never really recaptured the true Wolf sound until well into the ’90s. That was how I came to the realization that the real Steppenwolf sound required Goldy McJohn on keyboards. Sure Kay was the leader and at one time a truly great (and underrated) rock vocalist – but the music required Goldy to have that true deep Steppenwolf sound. He was the glue that held it all together. Anyway – my two cents.Don’t Step on the Grass, Sam…

If you have any memories of any of the ‘new’ bands featured in the book or these blogs then please do share them with me, either here or send them to SteveMcLeanComedy@outlook.com

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