I came to Falun to watch Deep Purple. The location was a ski-stadium or more exact, were the ski-jumpers landing. The opening-act was Smokie but I didn't see them. When I came to the place, I bought The Yearbook. Absolutely great! Much better than the ordinarily Tourbook it use to be.
Suddenly Deep Purple are on stage and they are playing FIREBALL and everybody goes wild. 30 seconds later.....BANG. Both Deep Purple and the audience are looking suprised. What's happening? The only thing I can hear is Steve Morse guitar. Ian Paice throwing his drumsticks to the audience. The band waves to us and leaving the stage. The shortest concert in the music history! I think many people thought it was a bit funny. But after a moment I start thinking, maybe something seriously have happened.
But 6 or 7 minutes later they are back with FIREBALL which ending with INTO THE FIRE. Ian Gillan make apologies for the breakdown and saying that will probably happen a few times more. TED, THE MECANIC came next. This song is better live. IG introduce the next song witch is PICTURES AT HOME. After that song they go straight into BLACK NIGHT witch includes a kind of a solo from SM. Then IG introduce CASCADES which have great solos both Jon Lord and Steve Morse. The band leaves SM alone on the stage for a while in this song and SM really show us how great he is. Then IG tell us a story of the next song. He said it is a song written in spanish and it's going to be sad the next 10 minutes. It's time for one of most popularly songs from the new album, SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE SCREAMING. I hear immediately on Ian Paice drums, what's coming next and IG said "This is the compilation woman". WOMAN FROM TOKYO. The whole version at last. Great! IG starts playing mouth-organ and it turns into the PURPENDICULAR WALTZ. After that song SM start playing something on his guitar and suddenly they are rocking SMOKE ON THE WATER. I'm glad that they don't finish the concerts with this song as they almost always did when TMIB was in the band. From "SMOKE" they slides into the JL keyboard solo. It's always a pleasure to hear his solos. And then SM comes back on stage and join JL for the intro to the next song, WHEN A BLIND MAN CRIES. After that nice tune IG said, we gonna do an Italian ballad, but instead we got SPEED KING. Great jam between SM and JL, and we also got a short solo from IP (a nice one). I'm glad that he didn't do a 10 minutes solo or something. Even if he is a great drummer, a long drum solo can be rather boring sometimes.
Time for a quick break and then it's time for the first encore which is PERFECT STRANGER. I wish it had been a darker evening. The lights would have been more effective. "And final the finale" (IG). HIGHWAY STAR starts and SM gets my hair in my neck stand. Absolutely great to end the concert with this song.
What can I say? DP seems to have a great time and I have it for sure. There is always songs that you miss but they can't play the whole night. The gig was around 1 hour and 30 minutes long and I only wish that I could have seen one of those longer gig they have done earlier on the tour like 2 hour and 15 minutes.
Benny Holmstrom (ikp95bhm@ieae.mdh.se)
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