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Deep Purple - Reading, Rivermead UK

Friday, 16 February 1996


> JUST ONE QUESTION:
> i guess it's cool that DP is playing SO many songs to keep such a large portion of their audience happy, but with this huge set-list, do they still have time for the open-ended improvisation that made many of us DP fans in the first place?

In a word. NO.

This was my biggest disappointment of the night. Although all the band seemed to enjoy themselves there wasn't much 'fun'. Steve Morse is a truely great guitar player, but I liked Ritchie fiddling around, going off at tangents and playing those little tunes that you recognise but can never name.

> i'm not advocating any sort of minimum time limit here (ie, if they don't have at least one 20-minute jam, i want my money back), but i would like to know they're not restricting on-stage spontanaeity and exploration to fit twenty songs into a gig of humanly playable length.

Ian said they would be cutting the show short as it was going on too long. He said they could fit in more songs if the audience kept the applause to a minimum. I'm certain he was joking, but you never know. It was in a leisure centre which closed at 11 o'clock, coincidentally the exact same time the gig ended!


Newsgroups: alt.music.deep-purple
Subject: Reading/UK 16/2/96 - Review
From: geoffd@miles33.co.uk
Geoffrey Denyer


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