It’s been said that guitarist Tommy Bolin’s mostly poor performance with Deep Purple on the night of Monday, December 15 1975 at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo was due to a bad heroin shot that numbed his left arm (after eight hours sleeping on it). But there’s another theory (to which I adhere) based on the fact that his playing only suffers on the songs originally played by Ritchie Blackmore: it’s probably a case of “sabotage” since Bolin wasn’t happy with the band’s demand of playing exactly like Blackmore on the old Purple material. But there’s really no “numbness” to be felt on his renditions of the songs from “Come Taste The Band”, the Deep Purple studio album he co-wrote and recorded, and (specially) the song from his solo album, “Wild Dogs”, performed during that tour. Anyway, it’s interesting to hear the “Burn” riff being introduced by a barely audible guitar and Jon Lord’s organ upfront in the mix.

From the 1977 album “Last Concert In Japan”. Original Japanese pressing.

Numark TTXUSB turntable – Nagaoka MP-500 phono cartridge – ART DJPRE II phono stage preamp – Vinyl record vinilo LP