Performed by Steve McLean
Various days 8th - 30th August 2026
Ok - it’s not every year you get a show about Deep Purple at the Edinburgh Fringe, and to be fair, this year still wasn’t one of them. The title is pretty accurate - this is meant to be a one-hour stand-up comedy show about a particular concert. The Bogus Purple are almost secondary. Oh - and I say “meant to be” simply as McLean was losing his voice and had to deliver the show more as an entertaining lecture than his usual high-energy show.
First things first - the venue was literally the back room of a cafe/record shop 5 minutes walk from work I had no idea even existed. It held about 30 people, and there were 11 or 12 there for this show. For the record, there was an American gentleman who looked in his 70s sat in front of me. I’m pretty sure it was actually Rod Evans. He’s now in Florida which is why we can’t find him in California 
The show starts of with a brief history of fake bands - from the 4 or 5 versions of Steppenwolf Steve Green was running concurrently in the late 1970s to the fake Frankie Goes to Holywood in the early 2000s. He touches on a few of the issues that made the bogus Purple possible, but not in their specific context (so Green building bands around minor former members, and trade-marking existing band names in states with legal loopholes allowing him to do so). McLean also made several jokes of these bands playing places bands never went to (I so want to visit Cousinfuck, Nowhere!) and the copious use of dry ice to disguise who was actually on stage.
But the main focus of the show is the gig in Mexico and everything that went wrong. In fact, the Mexico gig was only the 3rd attempted stadium gig in the country. No one involved had any experience of a music festival, and the whole thing was a comedy of errors…
No one bought tickets as they presumed it would be cancelled.
The doors were only opened an hour before. 15,000 tickets were sold. 55,000 pushed their way in.
The crash barriers were dug down into the ground so there was no movement meaning those at the front were crushed.
The Police who were meant to be providing security didn’t turn up as they hadn’t been given the appropriate bribe.
“Security” was quickly hired from the local Karate School.
In order to create a nice backstage area, half the stadium was closed off. This meant most of the toilets were unusable.
And Bogus Purple’s Purple…? They decided to be Prima Donna “Rock Stars” and turned up two hours late meaning the fake Black Oak Arkansas played their set twice.
And top it off, as the very disgruntled crowd left on the verge of riotting, they ran into the Gay Pride march. The riot, McLean says, would have happened anyway due to the conditions, and had nothing to do with the quality of playing. Or lack of.
You seriously couldn’t make this up and despite voice issues, McLean delivered it all with good comic timing and wit. He also points out that within a few years of this, big acts were beginning to add Mexico to the standard tour circuit, with Alice Cooper being one of the first.
As I said, Bogus Purple were secondary to this, but the name was used to promote the show. However, McLean did take the piss about the real band just a little too much, and a little too harshly. Yes, we got the joke a about Purple only having three hits (Smoke, Black Night and…the third one) and that their music all sounds the same, but he constantly referred to the band in the past tense. In fact, he only acknowledged the reunion by saying it wouldn’t have happened without the Bogus DP, despite the several attempts to get the band to reform prior to 1980 (such as Spain 1979). I’m all for making fun of what you enjoy, but this just felt out of place in a show that would attract Purple fans. And you don’t diss Roger, if if he did spend 1984/85 looking like Phil Collins
There’s only so much you can fit into an hour, but I personally would have mentioned one last thing - this was all pre-internet. In 1980, the six arguably most important band members who would potentially re-unite were split between three bands that were all doing very well in Europe and Japan, even if US success remained illusive. The Bogus DP really only existed due to the information vacuum of the pre-internet days.
Overall, it was an enjoyable show, and I recommend catching it if McLean plays a comedy festival near you. Just don’t expect it to be about Purple
4/5
in your never-ending quest to sanctify anything Blackers has done. According to you, I am secretly emotionally attached to him, when I am in actual truth only an observer (like observing a wild animal in nature), it strikes me that you are the one obsessed with preserving him as a Heiligenbildchen in your hymn book of praise, ole Catholic.
But maybe that is just my “rot” decaying.
