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

Review from Reims(France) Nov.09.1998 at Parc des Expo

Tonight, it was the most exciting night for me, because D.P. had made a concert in my town. Maybe you don't understand how happy I am. As for me, I was a lots of gigs of D.P. but always I had to drive long-way or take SHIN-KAN-SEN (Do you know what is it?) to get to big city like TOKYO. Since my younger age, so I was in BUDOKAN very often, for example, I saw 5 times RAINBOW('77-'83), I.G.BAND ('78) etc.etc. And also in France Feb. 26 1991 at BERCY and last summer in Jun. 12 1998 at ZENITH. I met D.P. music in '74 at L.A. where I spend summer school.

And then tonight, It seemed to me there was friendly atmosphere both players and audience. I watched car number in the pool, there were many cars from out-side of Reims district.
About concert hall, the sound was quite terrible, because there is no concert hall suitable for big names like D.P. here in Reims. I'm so asamed on it against the city-gov. The truth, this is not concert hall, it's an event hall but it is like a barn. Roof is close, but which has long depth. So I stayed at the bench during the opening act Gottard. They made me nostalgic such like Rainbow sound. After I came down to alina. I stayed about 10m's far from Roger.
I' d like to tell you shortely what I saw tonight:
IP. was butchering non-stopped.
IG. was dancing just like Roger told in the making of Abandon.
JL. was hitting keys but I don't know how many fingers he has.
RG.'s bass was singing..
And SM. was smiling all time, I was very impressed by his charming smile and was absolutery different than another player's face.
I don't want give my comments about music and technical level, because as for me D.P. is the best Rock Band in all the World.
So tight, so sure, so clear the sound which they made, almost out of human level. I have to thank all members of DP and crews and also organizers for realizing this concert. I think we had a nice time, and I guess I was the only one who came from TOKYO tonight.

Takashi Yokoyama


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