To celebrate BBC Radio 2’s 50th birthday, the network has announced the lineup for this year’s In Concert series which celebrates pop music from the last five decades, reports Radio Today. Five special concerts will see performances from Tears For Fears (October 26th), CHIC feat. Nile Rogers (October 30th), Liam Gallagher (November 2nd), Paloma Faith (November 9th) and Deep Purple (November 16), with each concert marking a different decade of music in the fifty years of Radio 2.

Taking place at 8 PM in the BBC Radio Theatre, London, the series of intimate performances will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 2 as well as in vision via the BBC Red Button, to be produced by BBC Studios. All performances will be available on BBC iPlayer for thirty days after.

Ian Paice of Deep Purple says “Hello, Ian Paice here, Deep Purple are really looking forward to performing for the BBC Radio 2’s In Concert programme. It’s been many years since we did something like this.But through all those years one thing has never changed. Playing live is the only way to capture the spirit of rock’n’roll music, because even 60 years after it reared its wonderful rebellious head that’s what it still is! There is no safety net of the recording machine to “fix things later”, you get it right or get it wrong. For the musicians it’s, an adrenaline rush, concentration and invention but most of all fun. That’s why we started doing it when we were kids. We hope you have fun being on the receiving end.”

A limited number of pairs of tickets for this event are available. Tickets will be distributed via random draw with 70% of tickets going to Greater London postcodes and 30% going to the rest of the UK. You can register at any time until 9.30 PM on Thursday, October 12th.

Applicants must be 18 or over. Photo ID will be required. Please take a look at the FAQ to see what type of photo ID is acceptable. Successful applicants must be available to get to the BBC Radio Theatre in London for no later than 7.30 PM. The show will finish at 9.30 PM.

Admission to this recording is on a first-come, first-served basis. Please note that as not everyone who asks for tickets uses them, to make sure they have a full house they send out more tickets than there are places. They do their best to get the numbers right, but unfortunately they occasionally have to disappoint people, so please arrive early.

Deep Purple have released their first-ever animated video. The official video for "The Surprising," one of the fan favorite tracks from the internationally successful album inFinite, takes the viewer on a journey through the magical 50-year history of the band. With high attention to detail, the animated masterpiece follows the five heroes of our story – Ian Gillan, Ian Paice, Roger Glover, Don Airey, and Steve Morse – through a stormy ship cruise full of allusions and sees them riding off into the sunset.

The video was directed and illustrated by Matt Rooke, alongside director Peter Rogers, who also produced the video together with Craig Hooper and Collin Games, known from the Deep Purple movie documentary From Here to inFinite.

Deep Purple and earMUSIC also announce the release of the 97-minute documentary From Here to inFinite, which is due out in November. It shows the history and origin of inFinite and provides a deep insight into the workings of the band for the first time on Blu-ray.

The Blu-ray further includes two hours of bonus material, including music videos such as "The Surprising," three previously unreleased live videos ("Time For Bedlam," "Birds Of Prey," and "Smoke On The Water"), all filmed and recorded at Hellfest 2017, as well as in-depth behind the scenes footage, movie documentary outtakes, interviews, and an audio commentary by Deep Purple themselves — all previously unreleased.
 
In conjunction with the release of the Blu-ray, Deep Purple and earMUSIC are also releasing The infinite Live Recorings, Pt. 1 on a special 3-disc vinyl LP, produced by Bob Ezrin. This was recorded at Hellfest 2017, the biggest metal festival in France and contains a brand new previously unreleased 80min live performance.

From Here To Infinite (Blu-ray) tracklisting:

The Movie - From Here To Infinite (97 min.)

Bonus
- Audio commentary by Deep Purple
- Live At Hellfest 2017 (“Time For Bedlam”, Birds Of Prey”, “Smoke On The Water”)
- Outtakes From Here To Infinite (Full interview with Joe Satriani, Corky – The Recording Engineer)

Official Music Videos
“The Surprising”
“Johnny’s Band”
Johnny’s Band Documentary
“All I Got Is You”

About inFinite - Interviews
- About the album
- Beyond the album
- Track by track
- Rapid Fire interview
- Behind the scenes photoshoot

The Infinite Live Recordings, Vol. 1 (3LP) tracklisting:

Side A
“Time For Bedlam”
“Fireball”
“Bloodsucker”

Side B
“Strange Kind Of Woman”
“Uncommon Man”

Side C
“The Surprising”
“Lazy”

Side D
“Birds Of Prey”
“Hell To Pay”
Key Solo

Side E
“Perfect Strangers”
“Space Truckin’”
“Smoke On The Water”

Side F
“Hush”
“Black Night”