The Last Bass Outpost

Good comments! Airey's Hammond sound never gelled as much with the lead guitar as Jon Lord's who prided himself in having invented the Gorgan, Purple's trademark sonic mix of organ and guitar.

Ezrin has certainly made the vocals more prominent. Martin Birch, Purple's 70ies producer, always kept the vocals subdued in the mix (in line with Ritchies helpful comment to Ian Gillan when the latter wanted his voice louder in the mix: "Who do you think you are, f***ing Tom Jones?!"). When my wife hears me listening to old DP recordings, she generally says two things: "I can't believe you can still listen to that stuff, you must have heard it a million times!" and "Why aren't the vocals louder?". 

"A PRS guitar on a Purple song also feels a little blasphemous, even if it sounds good." You wouldn't believe how many Purple diehards want him to switch to a Strat and, preferably, a Marshall stack!  I say: Let the kid from Belfast play what he wants. His sound certainly has more Brit (for the sake of argument I will view Northern Ireland as part of Britain here ...) grit to it than Morse's extremely processed and over-compressed soundscapes.

The Squier finish looks ultra yellowed then. A shame! I think the MIM stuff from ~10 years ago was closer to the originals?

That white T-bird is almost as glitzy as the musician!  Looks very cool.

 Geez, I finally had to go look at which "Mk" of Deep Purple it was that I saw back in '75 - Mk. III, with Glenn Hughes. I wanted to see Glover with his big floppy hat and Rickenbacker!

Yeah, the Purple forums are full of gleeful anticipation re that.  I find it a bit childish, I wouldn't mind seeing Yes (with whatever remnant members they have) at a Purple gig and I don't question Howe's legitimacy of continuing with the name. So many 70ies bands are by now down to one original member (Uriah Heep and Status Quo for instance, Purple too, if you see Mk I as the original DP, but most people only start counting Mk II as real DP of which there are still three members in the current - wait for it  - Mk IX line-up).

I don't mind these "elephant pairings" that DP does mostly on their North American tours to get butts on seats. They've done it in the past with Lynyrd Skynyrd (that combination even made it to Europe), the Scorpions and Judas Priest (what a dream combo for me!). I'd take a look at modern day Yes just to see what they are like now, that Glasshammer guy isn't a bad singer. I've seen Yes without Anderson before (with David Benoit) and I've seen Anderson with Rabin and Wakeman, both gigs were fine. Both Squire and Wakeman were in their respective own way limelight-grabbing charismasaurs 🦕🦖 on stage, highly entertaining.