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German reviews 2002
 

Smoke under water

When we arrived, we were surprised to hear Ronnie singing Man On The Silver Mountain in the distance. Anyway, I will pay 36 EUR for Deep Purple and will do so no matter who accompanies them. When we finally arrived inside, we caught Dio's final songs. He was in fine form that day.

Deep Purple started around 9pm with Gillan dressed all in white and on his bare feet. My impression was that the guys had to find themselves during the first two tracks but probably the sound engineer has to be blamed for that, I didn't hear much guitar and keyboard during the first minute. After that the show turned out as wonderful as always.

The setlist (hopefully complete and in order):

1. Fireball
2. Woman From Tokyo
3. Ted The Mechanic
4. Lazy
5. When A Blind Man Cries
6. The Well Dressed Guitar
7. Knocking At Your Back Door
8. Space Truckin'
9. Perfect Strangers
10. Speed King
11. Smoke On The Water

Encore (played in one set):

1. Hush
2. Black Night
3. Highway Star

Before Lazy Ian changed from his white shirt into a more coloured one and he made the announcement of the band going into the studio in October before they played The Well Dressed Guitar.

During Knocking At Your Back Door a tropical rain started. There was a terrific atmosphere with all the water coming down off the roof of the stage, but everybody had a good time (and please, all you guys out there: leave your umbrellas at home next time!).

Don Airey has found his way into the band, some great blues solos, though I didn't like this Star Wars/German National Anthem solo stuff too much. Ian Gillan was in fine form, some great Morse solos, Mr. Precision himself on the drums, most valuable player was Roger, unbelievable what he contributes to the band's performance.

A great show, great weather(!), I am looking forward to the next studio album and a hopefully less conservative setlist on next year's tour.

Uwe Schnier

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