HARTWALL ARENA, HELSINKI

07.12 2011

REVIEW AND PICTURES BY MARKO SYRJALA

U.K. hard rock pioneers Deep Purple have been annual visitors in Finland for a long time and this year made no exception here. The current tour “The Songs That Built Rock” includes also a Frankfurt Philharmonic Orchestra with whom the band performed a string of their biggest hits as well some rarely played gems. In fact, it’s already been six years since they released their latest studio release RAPTURE OF THE DEEP but it looks that there is still demand as they now sold almost 7000 tickets for their show for the Hartwall Arena.

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JOE LYNN TURNER

Joe Lynn Turner’s recording career, spanning three full decades, is too impressive to be described in just a few sentences. He will, however, forever be first and foremost recognized as the man responsible for leading the legendary hard rock band Rainbow to it’s greatest commercial heights. Taking over the reigns from Graham Bonnet, who had only endured one album in the giant shoes left by Ronnie James Dio, Joe recorded three classic albums, DIFFICULT TO CURE in 1981, STRAIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES in 1982 and BENT OUT OF SHAPE in 1983. Before reuniting with Mr. Blackmore once again, this time at the helm of Deep Purple to record the SLAVES AND MASTERS album in 1989, Joe helped Yngwie Malmsteen craft his arguably best work to date, the ODYSSEY in 1988.Through the years Joe Lynn Turner has also released numerous well received solo albums and worked with many great bands such as Mother’s Army. In the past decade he has, among other things, worked with Nikolo Kotzev on five albums, Brazen Abbot’s EYE OF STORM in 1996, BAD RELIGION in 1997, GUILTY AS SIN in 2003 and MY RESURRECTION in 2005 as well as Nikolo Kotzev’s double album NOSTRADAMUS in 2001. He’s also released and toured several albums with fellow Deep Purple alumni Glenn Hughes. We hope that you enjoy this look into Joe’s career, past, present and future!

Interview by Marko Syrjala

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01.02 2006  ICE HALL
 HELSINKI, FINLAND 

REVIEW AND PHOTOS BY MARKO SYRJÄLÄ

There is no doubt that Deep Purple are living legends. I know that many people think that the present-day Deep Purple isn’t the original band. Some might think that it’s a latter-day revival outfit, put together by Ian Paice, who is the sole survivor and only remaining member from the very first line-up which existed between 1968 and 1969. This band has survived a seemingly endless series of lineup changes and a dramatic mid-career shift from progressive rock to ear-shattering heavy metal to emerge as a true legend of the current hard rock community and everyone should respect that fact. Band’s 18’th studio album “Rapture Of Deep” was released on last November and band started their current world tour 17′th of January from London.

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