page_title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)
section_title: Tour and recording
hierarchical_section_title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album) / Tour and recording
caption_attribution_description: English: Nippon Budokan, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo Japan, designed by Mamoru Yamada in 1964.
context_page_description: Made in Japan is a double live album by English rock band Deep Purple, recorded during their first tour of Japan in August 1972. It was originally released in December 1972, with a US release in April 1973, and became a commercial and critical success.
  The band were well known for their strong stage act, and had privately recorded several shows, or broadcast them on radio, but were unenthusiastic about recording a live album until their Japanese record company decided it would be good for publicity. They insisted on supervising the live production, including using Martin Birch, who had previously collaborated with the band, as engineer, and were not particularly interested in the album's release, even after recording. The tour was successful, with strong media interest and a positive response from fans.
  The album was an immediate commercial success, particularly in the US, where it was accompanied by the top five hit "Smoke on the Water", and became a steady seller throughout the 1970s. A three-CD set of most of the tour's performances was released in 1993, while a remastered edition of the album with a CD of extra tracks was released in 1998.
context_section_description: By 1972, Deep Purple had achieved considerable commercial success in Japan, including several hit singles, so it made sense to tour there. Three dates were booked; the Festival Hall, Osaka on 11 and 12 May, and the Budokan, Tokyo on 16 August, though these were later changed to 15 and 16 August, and 17 August respectively due to an earlier US tour being rescheduled. The dates sold out almost immediately, and consequently the Japanese arm of the band's label, Warner Bros. Records, wanted to record the tour for a live album to be released in the country. The band eventually agreed to the idea, but insisted if it was going to be released, they wanted it to be done properly. Gillan recalled, "we said we would have to OK the equipment, we wanted to use our own engineer and we would have the last say on whether the tapes were released". The band enlisted producer Martin Birch, who had worked on previous studio albums, to record the shows onto an 8-track recorder so they could subsequently be mixed.
  The band's live setlist had been revamped at the start of the year, immediately after recording the album Machine Head, and that album made up a substantial proportion of new material. Although the setlist remained the same for most of the year, opening with "Highway Star" and closing with "Lazy" and "Space Truckin'", the band's musical skill and structure meant there was sufficient improvisation within the songs to keep things fresh. The original intention was the stage act would be used for about a year before being dropped, but Gillan and Glover both resigned from the band in June 1973. When this line-up reformed in 1984, the 1972 setlist made up a significant amount of material performed in concert.
  The band arrived in Japan on 9 August, a week before the tour started, to a strong reception, and were greeted with gifts and flowers. Birch was not confident that the recording quality would be satisfactory, since the equipment supplied by Warner Bros. did not have any balance control and that the recorder's size did not appear big enough on sight to capture a commercial quality recording. The band were uninterested in the end result, concentrating on simply being able to deliver a good show. Subsequently, Lord noted that he felt this attitude meant the spontaneity of the performances and interplay between the band members was captured well.
  The second gig in Osaka was considered to be the stronger of the two, and indeed this show made up the bulk of the released LP. Only one song, "Smoke on the Water" from 15 August show was used, and this may simply have been because it was the only gig that Blackmore played the song's opening riff as per the studio album.
  The band considered the gig at Tokyo on 17 August to be the best of the tour. Glover remembered "twelve or thirteen thousand Japanese kids were singing along to 'Child in Time'" and considered it a career highlight, as did Gillan. At the venue, a row of bodyguards manned the front of the stage. When Blackmore smashed his guitar during the end of "Space Truckin'" and threw it into the audience, several of them clambered past fans to try and retrieve it. Blackmore was annoyed, but the rest of the band found the incident amusing. The gig was not as well recorded as the Osaka shows, though "The Mule" and "Lazy" were considered of sufficient quality to make the final release.
  There were no overdubs on the album. Lord claimed once in a magazine interview that a line from "Strange Kind of Woman" had to be redubbed from a different show after Gillan had tripped over his microphone cable, but no direct evidence of this was found when the multitrack tapes were examined. According to Lord, the total budget for the recording was only $3,000 (equivalent to £39,872 in 2019).
caption: The band's favourite gig of the tour was at the Nippon Budokan on 17 August 1972
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