year, with Lord, Paice and Glover (and the record company) wanting Gillan back for another Mark II reunion to celebrate this milestone. Although Blackmore preferred Turner to remain in the group, he eventually, grudgingly, relented, after requesting and eventually receiving 250,000 dollars in his bank account and Mark II completed the aptly-titled The Battle Rages On... in 1993. Despite going ahead with another reunion, Blackmore still disagreed with the decision, which led to a new level of tension between himself and the rest of the band, particularly Gillan. Of particular contention was that Gillan reworked much of the existing material which had been written with Turner for the new album. Blackmore felt Gillan's rewrites made the songs less melodic than they had been in their original versions. The band began a European tour, which was documented on the live album Come Hell or High Water, released in 1994. A live home video of the same name was also released, covering a show in Birmingham, England, with an album of the complete show being released in 2006 as Live at the NEC, but this latter release was quickly withdrawn after Gillan publicly complained, feeling it represented a bad time in the group's history: "It was one of the lowest points of my life – all of our lives, actually". Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple for the second and final time, after a show in Helsinki, Finland on 17 November 1993. Joe Satriani was drafted to complete the Japanese dates in December and stayed on for a European summer tour in 1994. He was asked to join permanently, but his commitments to his contract with Epic Records prevented this. The band unanimously chose Dixie Dregs/Kansas guitarist Steve Morse to become Satriani's successor on August 23, 1994. Mark VII (1994–2002): Purpendicular and Abandon Morse's arrival revitalised the band creatively, and in 1996 a new album titled Purpendicular was released, showing a wide variety of musical styles. Though in the post-grunge mid '90s it was no surprise that it never made chart success on the Billboard 200 in the U.S. This Mark VII line-up then released a new live album Live at The Olympia '96 in 1997. With a revamped set list to tour, Deep Purple enjoyed successful tours throughout the rest of the 1990s, releasing the harder-sounding Abandon in 1998, and touring with renewed enthusiasm. In 1999, Lord, with the help of a