[ d e e p P u r . p l e )

The Highway Star

Current Tour
Latest reviews

Older Tours...
Tours 2005
Scandinavia plus
North America summer

Tours 2004
UK 2004
Russia & Ukraine
North America 2
Europe
Down Under
Asia
North America 1

Tours 2003
Europe
South America & Mexico
Ripening Tour part 2
Ripening Tour part 1

Tours 2002
Andrew Summerhayes' 31 years of DP
Solo shows: Paice, Glover, Lord
UK (rescheduled) + CH, Dubai, Greece
Germany
USA, part 2
USA, part 1
Asia
Russia, Ukraine & The Baltics
Ireland & UK

Tours 2001
Paice and York
Europe
North America
Australia, Japan, India

Concerto Tour 1999-2000
South America & Europe
Royal Albert Hall 1999

A.Band.On.Tour 1998-2000
1 - Europe-1 98
2 - USA 98
2a - Editor's Tour Special
3 - UK & Europe-2 98
4 - South America, Australia, Asia 99
5 - Europe-3 99
6 - Japan, Finland, Greece, etc 2000

Purpendicular Tours 1996-1997
UK, Europe-1 96
Europe-2 96
Europe-3, Japan 96
North America 96
South America 97
Europe-4 & Canada 97
House of Blues, USA 97-98
Ian Paice clinics UK 98

Much older tours...
1968-1995

 
Deep Purple - Cambridge, 24 February 1996 _|_

Deep Purple - Cambridge, Corn Exchange UK

Saturday, 24 February 1996


The Venue

I'VE NEVER SEEN the Cambridge Corn Exchange so full. It's unseated downstairs with seating upstairs. I'm standing centre stage about half way back. The stage is fairly spartan. Set up as per previous reviews: guitar extreme left, keyboards to the right on podium, congas in front, drums to the right also on podium, bass extreme right. Wafts of illegal substances!

Gave Pan Ram a miss.

The Set List (from memory. Apologies for any errors! - start 20:45, finish 22:55):

  • Fireball (ending with Into The Fire riff)
  • Maybe I'm A Leo
  • Vavoom: Ted The Mechanic
  • Pictures Of Home
  • Black Night
  • Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming
  • No One Came
  • Woman From Tokyo
  • Mary Long
  • The Purpendicular Waltz
  • Cascades: I'm Not Your Lover
  • Smoke On The Water (Roger with Rickenbacker - Lord solo)
  • When A Blind Man Cries
  • Rosa's Cantina
  • Somebody Stole My Guitar
  • Speed King

  • Perfect Strangers
  • Hey Cisco
  • Highway Star

The Songs

It's loud :-)

Nice mix of old and new. I'm glad that "CiT" has been dropped. Delighted at the choice of older songs. Fireball is a good opener allowing the band to loosen up very quickly. The Purpendicular repertoire includes most of the weaker songs with the exception of "Sometimes" which is quite superb. Only "Ted" comes over as better than on the CD. The others chug along satisfactorily. I'd like to have seen "Soon Forgotten", "Loosen" and "The Aviator".

It's very hard to pick out the highlights as there were so many, eg Leo, "WFT", "Mary Long", "No One Came", "Speed King", "Sometimes". But the crowning glory was "Perfect Strangers", an absolute monster of a song and a great start to the encore. I liked the shorter "Smoke"; it's weird to hear it half way through the set!

The Band

It has to be said that the star of this show was Steve Morse. I must admit that I'd never heard of him before he joined Purple but this guy is AMAZING! He has such a clear, clean sound. You can hear every note. He plays the old stuff with great aplomb and is obviously sensitive enough to stick to the original licks where appropriate and then add his own interpretations when it feels right. He has a permanent grin and is clearly enjoying himself. His interplaying with Jon was breathtaking. Those two sound as though they've been playing together for years. Thanks Steve! Does anybody else think he sounds like Gary Moore and looks like Kurt Cobain? Still better that than the other way round :-)

Jon was stood on his podium as though conducting his orchestra (which of course he was!). He was on good form though I was a little disappointed with his solo which seemed (relative to his incredibly high standards) badly thought out and meandering. Of course he got thunderous applause :-) As I've said his playing with Morse was superb. Jon's great skill is his support playing and he always seems to know exactly what is required to 'fill' the sound (okay, so I'm not a musician!).

Little Ian looked totally relaxed (as did everybody else for that matter). He just makes everything look so simple. No solo this time round. A great shame because I *like* drum solos! His bass drum was very high in the mix (as was Roger's bass); I've got the dents in my skull to prove it! Still the best around.

Roger seems to be becoming more and more the main force behind Purple. His bass was right at the front of the mix and was literally driving the band along. He joined Steve on acoustic guitar on "Sometimes" and the pair provided (inaudible!) backing vocals at times. This guy is having *fun*. Roger somehow projected an immense feeling of pride at was happening on stage. Rightly so.

Big Ian was also on good form. By and large he kept within his current vocal range and it was great. When he did stray, it showed! His inter-song banter was confined mainly to "This is a true story...". Often the band didn't wait for him to introduce the next song as he was taking so long! "Here's a song about.." Bamm, we're off! He kept apologising for mixing up the new and old. I sometimes get a bit irritated with Ian's tomfoolery, does he really not know what the next song is? But I'd much rather that than "Ere's a song for ya!". He looked remarkably slim too. Nice to see he maintains his dreadful dress sense!

The Crowd

Yer average Cambridge people; you wouldn't really get much idea who they were going to see. I saw Jools Holland here a few months ago with much the same audience. I didn't see one embroidered jean jacket! The average age seemed to be mid-thirties. People were more familiar with the older stuff than _|_ though "Sometimes" got a big cheer.

The Reviewer

I've got flu but I wasn't going to miss this for anything. I doubt whether we'll see them again in Cambridge and I know that if a certain guitarist was still in the band we wouldn't have had this honour. Apologies to anybody who's coughing their guts up because of me! (what does he want? sympathy?! )

The Conclusion

This was pure pleasure from beginning to end. The band look *so* happy. Long may they continue. Steve Morse is a godsend, I hope he sticks around. I didn't miss Blackmore one bit, in fact I'm so pleased he's gone. If people think this isn't Deep Purple, well I don't care. This band comprises four guys who I've admired and followed for 24 years plus one hell of a lead guitarist. Whatever they call themselves they are simply the best!

Simon Dickens


Newsgroups: alt.music.deep-purple
Subject: Cambridge/UK 24/2/96 - Review
From: dickenss@logica.com
(Simon Dickens)


[ Purpendicular | Rosa's Cantina ]

Donor Section

[ en-gb ] [ en-us ] [ de ] [ ja ] [ it ] [ pl ]

Home

Subscribe to:
The Highway Star Update!

Participate in:
Purple discussions
THS Blog

Join the:
Mailing lists

Purple Tours
Tour Dates
Tour Reviews

Purple Music
Shop
Upcoming Releases
Discographies
Lyrics/Tabs
Sound Archives
MIDI Archives
Movie Archives

Other Sections
News
Frequently Asked Q's
Image Gallery
Purple Contributions
Interviews
Special Features
Editorials
Bios/Family Tree
Newsgroup/IRC
Joanna's Gossip
Links
Who To Blame

Comments?

Search

Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing (with apologies to Ani)
(c) 2003, The Highway Star

|||| _|_ This site is EMI approved