[ d e e p P u r . p l e ) The Highway Star

Concert in Zurich/CH - October 18, 2000

Hello boys and girls,

Just a few lines from Switzerland to give an impression of the concert in the Hallenstadion in Zürich on the 18th of October. You won't be amazed when I tell you that it was a very very exciting evening filled only with highlights. I am very happy that the audience - quite mixed in age, the sympathetic 'fathers with their sons/daughters' (I also went there with my 18 years old son) etc. - had the patience and the 'culture' to keep silent during the quite soft orchestra (Romanian Philharmonic) parts. Ian and the band really felt the good vibes from the crowd and managed to get everybody from their seats! Before starting the 40 minutes orchestra pieces Ian asked the audience (I guess at least 10,000 people) to stay quite and even to sit down on the floor and everybody followed his request. Ian Gillan has a special charisma!

They played all the famous stuff in a wonderful way and I really believe they enjoyed their gig very much. Ian Gillan thanked the crowd many times and I think this was serious. So we had almost three hours of GREAT music. Last songs were "Smoke On The Water", "Black Night", and as the finishing touch, "Highway Star". You can imagine everybody getting totally crazy at the end. The radio critics were also very positive. For me, Steve Morse is just a Paganini of rock guitar. Such a great guitar player! He has given new life to Deep Purple. In Switzerland Deep Purple is still very popular, maybe also because they wrote some famous songs in Montreux back in the sixties. I'm sorry I did not write down a song list, but I was too busy watching and dancing.

All the best,

Jan den Otter


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