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

A Deep Purple concert experience

Deep Purple last night at the Entertainment Centre were what they are, a bloody good rock and roll band. You can't complain about nothing if that's what you go to see/hear/scream or whatever, I mean you can dance all the way home.

I was gonna write through the setlist but the pen I was writing them down on in the dark didn't like writing on the back of the ticket, so I got just about one word: "Fools", and a lot of memories but.

Reading the words of "No One Came" before the concert I thought it a bit depressing but in the concert it wasn't at all. The voice was part of the music and he could have been saying anything - I see these songs are of the same time.

"Fireman Sam" [A.k.a. "Ted The Mechanic"? Ed.] was fun and set the pace for songs to be played with as well as well. It was cool also hearing the audience sing back guitar licks - way to go! Happy people! The guitar had a great human sound, and although he went crazy quite a lot it didn't interfere with the whole feeling that they were all playing together. He, it was great; you go there to hear music and that's what you get. Even a strain of dog sat on the tuckerbox. [Excuse me?! Ed.] Yeah it sure was Deep Purple!

I reckon the rhythm section is the key, but you don't really notice, cos it's an exercise in cohesion so strong. There weren't any screens of close-ups, the lights were pretty effective and the sound was super. The colours at the beginning were mainly a deep purple, and there was a bit of smoke.Corr, it was great.

Ian Gillan called it a good room, and that it was a really good friendly feeling or something, and everything was 'superb'. The really bad seats where you can't see had been covered up and it did give a good shape to the stage bit. Ian Gillan's voice was that classic rock and roll scream, etc etc, then the well-spoken deeper voice talking away as he paced the stage, more often than not just disappearing into just one of the guys under the lights.

It was fun singing along "Smoke On The Water". The songs would dally around more often than repeat themselves endlessly. Sometimes the solos deconstructed the energy or something cos it was so cool then the way everything came together! The synergy of the resulting music included the addition of three people each side to the five in the band; at the drummer's right were brass players and at Paicey's left singer/dancers; but contrary to my first horrified surprise you couldn't really distinguish any of them from the main musical effect therefore it helped create that effect and it was all very cool.

Thanks for the concert guys. Ruth

Ruth


[ reviews | the highway star ]