Recording information: Shibuya Club Quattro, Tokyo, Japan (05/17/2002/05/19/2002); Studio 405 (05/17/2002/05/19/2002).
Photographer: Osamu "TIO" Suzuki.
As two artists who have worked with Ritchie Blackmore in the past -- Glenn Hughes (with Deep Purple) and Joe Lynn Turner (with Rainbow and for a short blip, Deep Purple, as well) -- it made sense for these two "Blackmore veterans" to unite, which they did as the Hughes-Turner Project. And with demand in Japan for all things Purple continuing for decades, what better locale than to record a Hughes/Turner live album than the Land of the Rising Sun? Expectedly, the track list for 2002's Live in Tokyo is split evenly between Hughes' Purple daze (a fine reading of "Stormbringer," "Mistreated"), Turner's Rainbow radio-friendlies ("Street of Dreams," "Spotlight Kid"), plus a few Hughes/Turner compositions (such as the album-opening "Devil's Road"). With Blackmore himself not having performed many of these nuggets in years, Live in Tokyo will provide some much needed post-Ian Gillan Deep Purple/post-Ronnie James Dio Rainbow nourishment for starved fans. ~ Greg Prato
