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

Review: Deep Purple 26/06/1999 Plauen

I'm back from the Plauen Open Air, here are some short comments.

Opening bands were Monkey Cab, Brainstorm and Sinner. The first two I didn't like much, but Sinner was ok.

Audience: around 5000-6000 people, I guess.

Lightshow: Absolutely useless, Purple started shortly before 8 o'clock, it was still broad daylight and when they finished it was just getting dark.

Setlist same as the shows before.

Good sound, from my position (fourth row, left from the middle) bass was maybe a little bit loud, but all instruments were clear.

Overall impression: Another top-show by the band, with all five of them in good form. I won't get into this further, since I would only repeating myself from earlier reviews.

Some bits and pieces:
- Steve threw in quite a large part from "Voodoo Child" by the late Hendrix in his parade and "The Mule" was very long too this time.

- Gillan announced SIFLS as being from Abandon...

- They had some troubles with one of Jon's Leslies, right up to the start of the show they were fiddling inside the speaker cabinet.

Since I'm off the tour for good now (though I hope I can make one or two dates more) it's time to say Thank You and Farewell to:

The Roadcrew: Though circumstances were sometimes less than ideal, they've done a perfect job.

The Fans: I've met a lot of people at the shows, from the diehard "My first show was in 1972" fans to the casual "Ritchie isn't in the band anymore?" Purple listener. It was nice to get acquainted with so many different Purple People.

The Band: A round of applause for Jon, Ian, Roger, Ian and Steve for "Doing their thing".

You keep on moving...

Christian Rutz


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