Halmstad 5. July 1996

I saw DP for the 4th time this year in Halmstad, Sweden a couple of days ago. All the times I've seen DP on this tour Steve Morse have walked away with the prize for "player of the day". This time Ian Gillan won the award.

I have seen DP and Ian Gillan several times live and on video. I have to say that I have never seen Gillan in such a good mood as he was in in Halmstad. IG tried on hats, played a tambourine solo, sang stupid English limericks, gave us some old rock'n'roll covers and for some strange reason made fun of Steve being an American. That joke was backed by JL playing "Rule Britannia" on his Hammond. I didn't get it exactly but I guess it's one of those things you develop when you are touring...

At one point during the encores when IG approached the monitors at the side of the stage he caused a horrible feedback. Gillan stumbled around a bit on stage and then sat down on the stage floor to continue singing. Gillan had some problems with feedback when I saw DP in Brixton in march and that time he got really pissed off but this time he just sat there smiling.

I guess the setting for the concert did it. The Swedish summer so far hasn't been good at all but in Halmstad the weather was great. The stage was set up right in the middle of something that could be explained like a little forest right next to the sea. Gillan told us that the trees around the venue were the only to survive the ice age or something like that. Then he went on about some boat he had watched out on the sea during the concert. The show contained all those little comments between all songs. It's very hard to translate the vibe to this medium though...

The only bad thing about the whole thing was that Steve had serious problems with a loud buzz in his amps throughout the show. Instead of the tapping he usually does before SOTW he just played around with that buzzing noise instead. All with that huge Morse smile on his face. Does this guy ever get annoyed about anything? Gillan's comment about Steve's problems was "we're about to play a very soft, melodic song right now and we don't need THAT!", pointing to Morse.

Nine dates in a row in Sweden with cold and rain. Gillan's words as he left the stage:

"We've had a great time. Thank you very much. Nine dates in Sweden has been an experience that was at worst character-building and at best fantastic..." (or words to that effect...)

Cheers,
Svante

Photos © 1996 Svante Pettersson

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