Around the world with Deep Purple
Vol II part 1
Monday, August 17 1998, Agora du Vieux-Port de Quebec, Quebec, Canada
Pre-Show
I arrived to Quebec City around 4pm and with the show scheduled to start at 6:30 didn't have much time to enjoy the only truly European city in North America. The venue is located in the Quebec's Old Port, right on the tip of a small peninsula entering St. Lawrence river. It is probably not more than 20 meters from the Agora entrance to the old moorages which are now a part of tourist-oriented promenade. The venue itself is an open-air amphitheatre seating approx 3-4,000 people. With the magnificent view of St. Lawrence it's probably the most beautiful arena I've ever seen. I was supposed to meet Glen Miller and Carl Kottmeyer at the venue and waited them outside for a while. At about 6:15 I went in and spotted Glen standing up in his section. Carl was just about to land in QC airport and would miss the whole Dream Theater set and maybe part of ELP.
The show
DT took the stage at 6:30 sharp. This is the eatliest time I ever saw a rock gig to start (not counting all-day-long festivals) and I was hoping for a longer DP set this time.
DT played pretty well for about 50 minutes and though I am not a big fan of theirs (at least, not as big as DP's) I enjoyed it immensely. Like many die hard Purple fans, I've heard their Change of Seasons album (just to check out cover of Perfect Strangers) but that's pretty well all about it. Now I think I'll get the rest of their catalogue which means they did an excellent job promoting it. Towards the end of the set, James LaBrie announced that they are really proud of playing on the same bill with ELP and Deep Purple. Overall, their set was quite warmly received by both DT fans and older folks who obviously came for ELP and DP.
The break between sets was very short considering the amount of equipment roadies had to take off the stage and set up new one. ELP played for about 75 minutes including encore. I really enjoyed Palmer's drum solo and the encore medley which opened with 21st Century Schizoid Man. The rest of the set just didn't make it for me as I never was an ELP fan.
Another brake and the Purps emerge from backstage into dark blue lights opening with Hush. They started very energetic, but despite of this for most of the show the Quebecoise crowd stayed calm and sitting down. I do not know for sure, was it the crowd, or was it Gillan's voice (much better than the previous tour, but nothing compared to the earlier European dates), but from time to time the band seemed less enthusiastic than usual. The next thing I see is that during the SOTW something goes wrong with the sound, rhythm section falls apart and magic is lost. They managed to recover by Speed King, but the show never was the same. Setlist appeared to be the same as on earlier US dates with only two new songs played that night: Almost Human and Watching the Sky. Midway into the set, a HUGE oceanic cruise ship sails up the St.Lawrence and she anchored right next to the venue. I bet guys on the upper decks got an excellent view of the stage and a good chunk of concert for free.
Speaking about highlights, these were: PoH and Steve's solo which went into (seemingly) impromptu Cascades final. That night it really seemed that Cascades wasn't planned, but just came out naturally: 'what the heck, let's do it!'. It would be so if the same idea wasn't repeated next two nights with variuos success.
Post show
The whole thing was over way before 11 and we decided to hang out at the backstage entrance for a while with the hope to get hold of Colin, who promised Glen backstage passes. Apparently we were at the wrong place as we never got a chance to meet any of the band, and after seeing tourbus leaving from the other side we called it quits.
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