Launch Radio Networks reports: After initially saying they would do everything they could to play this week, DEEP PURPLE has postponed their Thursday (July 27) show in Lebanon. Their booking agent told the concert industry trade publication Pollstar, "The band and the festival have agreed it's best not to go." DEEP PURPLE was supposed to play the Baalbeck Festival, but that became impossible once the Israeli military attacks spread to the Baalbeck area, which is about 53 miles from the Lebanese capitol of Beirut.
DEEP PURPLE had said all along that they would reschedule if the show didn't go on, and bassist Roger Glover told the Southern Connecticut Newspapers chain, "It's in everyone's interest that a musical concert be a relatively peaceful event. Once they get things together and the situation settles down and the time is right, I'm sure we'll go back." Glover added, "It's a shame. I know the area quite well and Baalbeck is quite beautiful and very historic. I was actually looking forward to the concert."
Glover and frontman Ian Gillan did a nine-week run in Beirut in 1966 with their pre-DEEP PURPLE band EPISODE 6.
Glover also said the band has faced danger before, since American concerts were sometimes punctuated with random gunfire back in the '70s, but he said, "We actually never think about risk because when you are a performer out on stage you are kind of a target anyway. That made us think sometimes, but in this situation (in Lebanon), we're faced with a somewhat more real danger than people possibly taking a potshot at us."
DEEP PURPLE wrapped up their current round of touring Monday (July 24) in Athens, Greece. The group will be off the road until a new run of European dates begins in early October. Gillan will use the downtime to mount a North American solo tour from mid-August through mid-September.
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