One part concert film, one part documentary, Phoenix Rising looks at the Mark IV lineup of Deep Purple (David Coverdale, Glenn Hughes, Tommy Bolin, Ian Pace and Jon Lord). The concert film is Deep Purple Rises Over Japan, a document of a 1975 Budokan concert. The down-side to this is the fact that it only runs half an hour in length. It’s great to see some footage of this lineup of the band, and the concert is captured well on video. Gettin' Tighter is an eighty-minute documentary about the formation and eventually disintegration of this lineup of Deep Purple. It’s not perfect, but again it’s a look at an often forgotten period of Deep Purple history. That, in itself makes this very worthwhile.

This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2011  Volume 4 at lulu.com/strangesound.