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Laugardalshollin, Reykjavik, Iceland
June 24, 2004

Last night I attended a double-concert that was tremendously enjoyable.
At 8 pm the Icelandic group Mánar (moons) from Selfoss that hadn't performed since they quit 30 years ago, then having been a very popular band for 10 years. In the 80s they had made one LP with progressive music. Like most Icelandic bands their covering of music from great bands like Uriah Heep and Jethro Tull is faultless. And they played songs from that album and two Uriah Heep's songs, Easy Livin' and July Morning and the audience sang along.
When Deep Purple came on stage at 9,15 the full house (5000) was well upheated and prepared for the nonstop playing of about 30 Purple songs which the crowd sang along with.
I must congratulate the band for the best concert I'd ever attended. I invited my three sons to come along with me, and we all enjoyd the concert wholeheartedly. There was no generation gap to be seen, everybody of the audience, whether they were 10 years of age or 70 jumped up and down, waved their hands and sang along with Gillan or voice-covered Morse's guitar wailing when he was playing with us.
A concert that will truly be kept up front in our minds for years to come.
Best regards
Ólafur Þór Eiríksson

For the first time I saw Deep Purple live tonight in Reykjavík, Iceland, and I've never been on a better concert! It was just great!
Even though most of them are almost 60 years old they still are very good, if not better!
There is only one word to describe Ian Gillan, Ian Paice, Roger Glover, Steve Morse and Don Airey: They are geniuses!
I don't remember all the song 100% but here are some:

Silver Tongue
Woman from Tokyo
Strange kind of Woman
Doing it tonight
I've got your number
Steve Morse Solo(Contact Lost)
Don Airey solo
Higway Star
Lazy
Smoke on the Water
Black Night
Hush
Hit the Road Jack
Knocking at Your Back Door
Perfect Strangers
Space Truckin'
When a Blind Man Cries

To see DP live, it's just a wonderful experience!
Thank you Deep Purple!
Zyklus, Iceland

I thought the first night was good, but the second night (the original date that sold out so quickly) was awesome. The crowd needed awhile to heat up, but when they did, they proved themselves to be one of the most responsive audiences I've ever witnessed - and this of course meant the band, in turn, replied with a very heated performance featuring someextended solos (Black Night was great!)
Apparently, the band decided after last night's show that if this is the kind of reaction they get, then they should tour small island states every 30 years. ;-)
Another amazing thing about the Icelandic audience was the percentage of really young kids among them: We saw tonnes of kids between 8-16 everywhere, banging their heads, dancing or punching the air. Most of them were not accompanied by their parents but seemed to have come on their own accord. Quite a few of them waited patiently at the backstage exit for the band to come out, and got their guitars, bass guitars, t-shirts, tickets, albums,etc. etc. autographed. As the band got in their van and left, one girl shouted something like "you'll be sexy even when you're 80!"
The setlist was basically the same as what I saw in Japan/Korea, with Hush and Black Night for encores. Various arrangements were different each night.
My local companion works in a CD shop and told me that Bananas didn't do much in the Icelandic charts when it came out, but since these shows were announced it has been picking up a little, and he thinks with these two shows DP have definitely won lots of new, young fans. (I was in a supermarket earlier this evening, where I saw a group of teenagers, one wearing a Bananas t-shirt :-)
The local support act, Mánar, is a 70's hard rock band who were apparently very big here. Although one of their albums have recently been re-releasedon CD, they had not performed live for nearly 30 years, and they got back together for these two Deep Purple concerts.
On top of the five original members, there were several, young, guest musicians onstage. A few numbers into the set, the singer introduced everyone - the young ones were all sons and daughters of the members!
Their set consisted of their old hits (some simple hard rocknumbers, some more melodic - one number really reminded me of Banco, theItalian prog rock band) as well as a couple of Uriah Heep covers. The last number they performed, an anti-war song was very impressive with the very loud machinegun sound and white 'search light' lighting effects.
All the older members of the audience knew every number, of course, and there was alot of clap-your-hands-to-the-music and very enthusiastic mood even beforeDP hit the stage.
Afterwards there were a few fans hanging out in the bar at the hotel. This young boy comes up to Don Airey with a vinyl copy of Machine Head. Don hesitated before signing it, as the boy explained to him how his father and a mate were planning to see DP in Iceland in 1972, when this mate met an accidental death by drowning a few days before the show. This was the copy of the album he was planning to bring along to the show in the hope of getting it autographed by the band. The young boy had brought it along now on his father's behalf. Yes, the young boy was very, very, happy.
Akiko Hada