Deep Purple - Made in Japan - 2 x Vinyl LPs

“Made in Japan is Purple’s definitive metal monster, a spark-filled execution…Deep Purple can still cut the mustard in concert” — Rolling Stone magazine

One of the most celebrated live rock albums in history was making its big entrance on 6 January 1973. Made In Japan, the double live album recorded in the summer of 1972 during the first tour of Japan by Deep Purple, debuted on the UK chart.

The album featured only seven tracks across the four sides of the original vinyl release, four of them taped at their show at the Festival Hall in Osaka on 16 August; one at the same venue the night before; and the other two at probably the best-known venue in those early days of Western bands exploring that market, Tokyo’s Budokan.

This was already Purple’s second live album, but a very different animal to their first, the 1969 recording of Jon Lord’s Concerto For Group and Orchestra. This time, chiefly at the request of their Japanese label, the idea was to create a record of the band’s powerful live show. It was also a chance to present an in concert version of the band’s anthem-in-the-making from the Machine Head album of only a few months earlier, ‘Smoke On The Water.’

Included on Made in Japan in live form are three more songs from Machine Head, which had been on the UK charts for 24 weeks after its April 1972 debut. The live set’s opening ‘Highway Star’ was another new Purple favourite, while ‘Lazy,’ a seven-minute track on Machine Head, extended to nearly 11 on the live record. The closer, taking up the whole of side four of the vinyl release, was ‘Space Truckin,’’ which expanded from a four-minute original to an epic of nearly 20 minutes on Made In Japan.