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Stathis N. Panagiotopoulos

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John Garmland

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Hein Bierman

Fabio Fickle

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Jerome Niquille in French

Garry Smith saw the show

Horns?! Roger Glover explains

Highlights in Realaudio 3.0

Deep Purple - Live at the Olympia

Review by John Garmland

It wasn't an easy task finding "Live at the Olympia" here in Linköping, Sweden. Just as I was getting desperate about it I walked into a little record store and I there it was.

Listening to the LATO'96 CD I must say it sounds very much like when I saw them in Stockholm last summer. My biggest memory from that concert was when they got on stage playing "Fireball", I almost got a heart-attack, they were so GREAT!

The version of "Fireball" on LATO is just as good as I remembered it from Stockholm.

After "Fireball" it's time for "Maybe I'm a Leo" which I've never heard live before but it shows to be very good.

Then it's time for "Ted the Mechanic" one of my favourites from _I_, a very good live number.

Another highlight is the Steve Morse solo, I'm telling ya' that guy can play the guitar! If he'd practise some more he'd be just as good as me.

"No One Came" is probably when the horn-section is at their best, they give the song a kind of funky feel.

Old "Smoke" is there of course, but with a very short sing along break. I've got to admit that if Ritchie is missed somewhere it sure is on "Smoke on the Water".

After Jon Lord's solo they get into "When I Blind Man Cries", I really like this one!

"Speed King" is as good as always, though Paice's solo should have been a little bit longer. Paice by the way does a really good show. The same must be said about Gillan who sings better on this album than on other recent live albums like "Come Hell or High Water".

Steve Morse shows us that he is the guitarist of Deep Purple right now.

Roger Glover is also having a good show, not to mention Jon Lord.

The encores on the album is "Perfect Strangers", (which is the only Mk2 song written after the reunion played this night) "Hey Cisco" and the absolute highlight of the show: "Highway Star".

Conclusion

Deep Purple-Live at the Olympia '96 is with no doubt the best live album Deep Purple has released for 25 years. It shows Deep Purple at their best: LIVE! Buy the record and as Simon Robinson would have said; Go ahead and make your neighbours enjoy it!

John Garmland