Ian Gillan John McCoy Bernie Torme
Mick Underwood Colin Towns
Dave Leeson,
Friars fan, writing for the Friars Aylesbury website in 2008:
"Gillans
gig at Friars was one of those surprise gigs which had low expectations
but proved to be a corking night out. Gillans previous albums since
leaving Purple had been leaning on the jazzy side of rock so when he
kicked off the show with Secret of the Dance from the new album and
started shaking his mop of long hair around, i was in heavy rock
heaven.The gig continued at a relentless pace with the rest of the band
featuring gypsy guitar god Bernie Torme and the large menacing figure of
John McCoy on bass crashing out Gillan songs aswell as purple classics.
A
footnote to this gig was that on trying to impress a new girlfriend i
managed to get backstage and being in a somewhat drunking state managed to
kick Gillan's beer over and in a rather loud voice proceeded
to enquire the whereabouts of Mr Gillan only to discover him standing next
to me with a towel over his head, he was not impressed, neither was my
soon to be ex-girlfriend."
A popular turn at Friars, it was no surprise
that Gillan made four headlining appearances including the 1982 date on
his farewell tour as he had been advised that his voice could be under
threat. Gillan the band fell apart and subsequently (after vocal cord
surgery) went on to front a reformed Deep Purple who still tour to this
day.
