With the band back with a new album, let’s have a look at Deep Purple at Sunbury ’75 with this short YouTube piece posted by our pal Brookesy that assembles various bits of the footage with a focus on Purple, who flew in just to the headline the festival.
The footage includes some voiceover from the day from another friend of ILYOS, Trevor Smith, and some on the spot reporting from a rather young and only now recently retired Melbourne news icon, Mal Walden.
The festival was poorly attended due to poor weather, and by all reports the only band who got paid was Purple themselves. This came back to bite them when they wanted to come back for a full tour – the Musician’s Union threatened to not allow it due to the unrest it would cause amongst their members. Purple, to their credit, apparently did not hesitate to then put money back into the kitty to ensure that all the Australian artists were paid what they were due. Of course you wouldn’t know any of that if you just listened to young Mal, who declares the festival a "swinging success"!
So check this out, and if you want to listen to some more Purple, give our playlist a follow (it will be regularly updated!) - our new I Like: Deep Purple playlist on Spotify has nearly 2 hours of prime Purple from the ‘70s.
- DL
