It was a difficult time counting the days before we could see our beloved Deep Purple guys again, the twelfth concert for my wife and myself since the Concerto concert in Rotterdam 2000.

We were very excited to hear at least some of the new songs live for the first time. My brother was with us who went to see DP for the first time of his life loving DP music for over 30 years. (And he enjoyed the whole evening!)

The Heineken Music Hall was full (sold out in a couple of weeks with 6.000 fans) but the accoustic quality is very good. After the start with Pictures of Home and the first new song Things I never Said came the powerful Wrong Man, the great 1970 track Living Wreck and the title song Rapture of the Deep.

There were two changes compared with the opening night in London. DP left out Back to Back and Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming. Instead we got Mary Long and as first encore Hush.

According to my wife Jannie and myself Contact Lost was the very best performance of the evening. A big thank you for Steve: the song was fantastic smooth and emotional at the same time. Apart from Junkyard Blues we loved the life version of all the new songs. I sadly missed the great ballad Clearly Quite Absurd.

After nearly two hours we felt very happy to have gained a new wonderful memory of a warm DP music blanket in a cold winternight in Amsterdam.

Finally, speaking about Amsterdam: Don played a wonderful part of Tulips from Amsterdam. Don became also a major player within Deep Purple with
the new album and the new tour, but we don’t have any objection to that. Thanks Don for the great performance.

Dirk de Hen

Having read Rasmus Heide’s review there is not so much more to say. Yes, it was great.

It seemed to me that Gillan’s voice wasn’t at the top from the start, especially in Wrong Man and Ted, but after being screeming Living Wreck the whole way through, ending up with to long IIIIAAAUUU, it worket much better for the rest of the concert.

I do agree that Junkyard Blues was the weakest, I think it’s the same on the album. Things I Never Said was great, haven’t heard it before, a shame it’s not on our album.

Rapture Of The Deep worket fine and Before Time Began, which in my opinion might be the best song they have ever wrote, was really fantastic. Steve’s solo and The Well Dressed Guitar was furious, and yes, much more emotional than before. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye was rocking, and so was the old ones.

In Smoke On The Water Roger went nostalgic, and played it on his old Rickenbacker, it sounds great, I think it has a more smooth sound than the Vigier. Paice’s solo in Hush wasn’t wery long, but included a short one hand roll, and after all, the whole show was nearly one long drumsolo. I have always loved the long solo parts from the old days, and now they seems to be returning, several times when playing solos they turned into jamming as if they nearly forgot the audience, just playing for fun.

Now I am looking forward to June 10th and the festival “Rock under broen” in Denmark, I have bought the ticket.

Ole Andersen

KB Hallen, Copenhagen, Denmark – January 28, 2006

Pictures Of Home
Things I Never Said
Wrong Man
Eduardo The Mechanic
Living Wreck
Rapture Of The Deep
Before Time Began
Mary Long
Contact Lost
Morse solo
Well Dressed Guitar
Lazy
Airey solo
Perfect Strangers
Junkyard Blues
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
Space Truckin’
Highway Star
Smoke On The Water
– – –
Hush
Black Night

A victorious return to Copenhagen for Deep Purple. Everybody left with huge grins on their faces, including me!

Endless list of excellent stuff to talk about. Things I Never Said is a corker, as is Wrong Man, so heavy. The set list is very well structured as it moves from an inspired first half of mainly new songs, which all sufficiently capture the crowd and satify the hardcore followers. Then a second half of powerful renditions of oldies spiced up with masses of energy and enthusiasm rolling back and forth between the crowd and the band.

Steve did a ‘new’ solo in Mary Long, which got a huge cheer – even if Gillan missed out a lot of the first verse. His flowing white Ghandi dress is gone. Black pants are back – as is the colourful waist coat, and the man is looking good.

Paicey did a solo in Hush and generally there was a lot of solo spots dotted around the show. Perhaps even a bit too much for my liking.

Don Airey has a mostly new and very inspired solo spot, bits of which sounded like Jean Michel Jarre variations. His new keyboard caved in on him in the middle of the Star Wars theme – perhaps a sign from above… Interestingly Ian Gillan has introduced ‘air keyboards’, which meant the entire KB Hallen was wriggling their hands high in front of themselves, as if playing keyboards. An impressive sight.

Steve’s solo also featured a whole new approach and became very emotional as it gradually built from the beautiful Contact Lost to a massive Well Dressed Guitar, which the entire venue seemed to latch onto with great joy.

Then only slight low point was Junkyard Blues, which felt pedestrian coming after a thunderous Perfect Strangers. Good thing it was followed by the fabulously powerful Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye.

Sadly KB Hallen was apparently too small to properly mount the new video screens, so the video crew got a night off and the smaller screens (only mounted in half size or something) showed only creative colour patterns, which seemed both pointless and out of place.

The new tour programme is both well designed and includes some excellent bits of writing. Most of the tour shirts are again too blatant to want to wear anywhere after the show – although the licence plate longsleeve is nice.

Deep Purple 2006 – very nice – and my wife thought so too! 🙂

Rasmus Heide

January 26, 2006, cold outside, especially when you’re waiting!

6.30pm opening of the doors and the audience, a lot of “Too Old Too Rock & Roll, Too Young Too Die” but also younger ones, even children (begged by their parents to come with them*) all searching for a nice place.

The support-act in Amsterdam is the SQY Rocking Team, a band from the south of Netherlands with the mission to warm up the audience. A nice try, good music and a singer, who’s a party-animal too. Always difficult for a support-act and sometimes, there are fantastic musicians as I can remember Woody Woodmansey U-Boat, a support-act for Uriah Heep, long, long ago.

Light’s out at 21.00 and on two video-screens we can see the members backstage coming out of a box and going to the stage. The opening is an excellent Pictures Of Home, what an amazing sound! Their new flashing lightshow is really fantastic.

The sound in the Heineken Music Hall is perfect, the show’s fantastic, very loud, very clear!

The setlist is an historical tour of the classic Deep Purple combined with their today’s music, a lot of Rapture Of The Deep songs which come out in an excellent way!

Unfortunately no Bananas or Abandon and the only Purpendicular-track is Ted The Mechanic. It’s great to hear songs as Wrong Man, Before Time Began, the beautiful Junkyard Blues and especially Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye is a superb live-track!

You can feel the happiness of the always friendly old men and they are still such great musicians. Steve’s smashing his guitarwork into the hall, Paice and Glover, the powerful engine of the band, Gillan’s fantastic singing and explaining about the songs, he’s great and Don’s work on the keys, which we cannot only hear but also watch his fingers on the video-screens is amazing, thanks Don, for the ‘Tulpen uit Amsterdam’, all amazing!

The well-known Highway Star, Mary Long, Lazy and this time Space Truckin’ and Living Wreck and of course, their signature, Smoke On The Water without an intro tonight.

An encore with the rocking Hush and Black Night and two hours later the show’s over.

As Ian always screams to the audience, we now can say to them: We Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaank Yoooooooooooooooooooh ! ! !

Hans Stellingwerf

*(In the Saturday-newspaper one of the kids has written a letter: he reluctantly joined his father and it was his first-time-concert. He thought, why do I have to go to a concert of old men and their old-fashioned music but when he heard the first track, he changed his opinion: Dad, you’re totally right!)

Like wine – the older they get, the better they are!

It was a sold out concert in Amsterdam and it was a long time a go that Purple was here, according to Ian Gillan.

The set list was almost similar to Brussels. Compare with that list, they added the songs Mary Long and Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (the song with a Bo Diddley rhythm as Ian said). Ian had still some problems to remember some words of the new songs. But that didn’t bother me, I was happy that they play a lot of the new stuff. And they play the new songs very well, heavier then on the album.

Some old songs had a new approach, so they sounded little different as we know it from previous tours. The instrumental break in Mary Long, I never hear it this way before, Highway Star had a different intro, the tempo from Space Truckin’ was slower then normal, so it comes closer to the original album tempo.

The encore was also a little different from Brussels, in Amsterdam they played Hush with a solo spot for Ian Paice, Yesssss!!! and closed it with Black Night.

It seems that the guys have a lot of joy on stage, a lot of smiling. So when the band is having fun on stage, then normally the audience is also having fun. I can only speak for myself, I had a fantastic evening with great music that was played with a fantastic spirit from Ian G., Roger, Ian P., Steve and Don.

Thank You!

Bennie Helmes

Yesterday I went to my first Deep Purple concert since the Concerto Tour in 2000. I was willing to see them again, just because I really admire the new album Rapture of the Deep, but also because I wanted to see them play in the Heineken Music Hall.

Everything was very, very good. The atmosphere, the opening act (really don’t know who they were, but they took their stand as warmup for Deep Purple, singing Iahan Gillàààn repeatedly. Funny guys from the south of the Netherlands) and of course Deep Purple. And it was loud! Very very loud. (one time it hurted my ears…)

The show opened on the two video screens left and right of the stage. Very nice feature, these screens. Just before the band came upon the stage there was a short film of a big trunk being opened by one of the roadies. The 5 guys we all came to see came out of the trunk and walked towards the stage door.

Then the show kicked of with Pictures from home, with the well known, brilliant Drum intro from Ian Paice. Very nice show opener, will probably remain the opener for this tour. It made everybody move, jump, swing, clap … have fun.

They went straight on with Thing I never said, what a great Rock and Roll song, I feel a bit pissed that it is not on my special edition, metal case cd… 🙁 Very very good song, played at full volume …)

The whole show followed more or less the same setlist as the other shows. Back to Back was left out, and unfortunately we didn’t get to hear Speed King, but Mary Long and Hush were a real treat ! Absolutely fabulous.

Wrong man still appeared to be difficult for Ian Gillan. He started with the lyrics of the second verse, instead of “I wasn’t in the room when the action was going down … ” He still was paging through his textbook and yet made the mistake. Is he nervous? As the show moved on, he didn’t need the book anymore, and the performance of the new songs got better and better (if any improvement was still possible, because it was first class already)

Living wreck, complete with the fresh style of timing by Ian which I like very much, was real treat. It is nice to hear an old song being performed live in such a strong way. (did I already say it was loud?)

All the other songs were performed with splendid musicality, the titelsong from Rapture of the deep is not my personal favorite, but live it was taken to the level of Perfect Strangers. It is much better than on the album, in fact all the new songs have a much more energetic feeling ion their live versions. (This show calls for a live album gentlemen!)

Before Time began was also very nice and then Ian Gillan told the roaring crowd that we were left in the capable hands of Steve Morse. He played a beautiful version of Contact Lost driving up to The Well Dressed Guitar. Specially for these solo parts the video screens were superb, also because the camera work was done very well. Really like it!!

The Morse solo was highly appreceated by the crowd. At the end I jumped out of my chair to applaud as loud as I could. (Just like many others!) It took us to “Lazy”, one of my favourites. Execellent, brilliant, need I say more? … Loud maybe? (this is the song in which one chord of Steve really made me grab for my right ear, it hurted like hell for half a second…)

And then, the Keyboard Solo. Don really took over from Jon Lord in a very pleasant way. He’s got his own style and being a real Jon Lord fan I’m reluctant to say that I think Don Airey is more all-round. He was playing syths, moog, piano, hammond and another keyboard. WOW WOW WOW!!! He kicked off with a Lord-like classical piece of Beethoven, moved on, performed the Star Wars theme beautifully and even incorporated “Tulips from Amterdam” very funny sing-along song from the early fifties. It raised a big laugh by the audience. The solo could have gone on and on for ever, but took us to Perfect Strangers.

Yeah Perfect Strangers, it made full use of the wonderfull lighting kit. Sometimes so bright you could hardly look towards stage. Really spectacular !!!!!

Junkyard blues was introduced as a “true story” about an era where Ian had no money and had to sleep in an old car.
Excellent live song.

Then came another surprise, Hush !! To me, this line up, with Don behind the keys, has given the best performance of that song I have ever heard. I did like the Kula Shaker version, but now we know how we really got to know it…
Good chance for a chart single, a live single?

Then we were leaving the rock ‘n roll highway to go “up there” and Ian pointed to the ceiling… SPACE TRUCKING! It’s been a while since I heard that one live… wow… at that time I was hoping the evening would never end…

It was Machine Head time… we were also treated on Highway Star and of course, again with a roar from the crowd, Smoke on the Water. I think everything there is to say about these songs had already been said in the last 30-something years… I will remember the bass-solo and the drum solo forever. (What a beautiful Bass Guitar Roger. Very vintage, great sound.)

The fab five left the stage briefly, to return for the encores, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye and Black Night. The latter being turned int o a real sing-along by Steve Morse.

All the band members appeared to have a great time. And so did we.

The sound quality in the Heineken Music Hall is indeed splendid. No reflections from walls or ceiling, just music coming from stage. For the first time I could really identify every instrument. Specially the Bass made a great impression. (Hopefully my ear will recover, maybe it just needed some training… )

Thank you guys, keep on Rocking!!!

Robert Daems

Jeb Wright at “Classic Rock Revisited” did an interview with Ian Gillan recently. Here is a few bits:

I think the way Purple goes about their business – we just don’t want to be called a classic rock band. I don’t really mind it but I just want to make that point.

We are going on the road for two years to support the album. People ask me how I can do that at age 60. I still get a tickle in my tummy on show day. I have to meditate and hold down my adrenaline level. It is still an incredible challenge to be on stage with Deep Purple every day.

About Deep Purple family tree:

It’s not a tree. It is a fucking jungle!

About “Rapture Of The Deep“:

I don’t know if anyone in the band is still disappointed in the cover. All I can say is that it has the total support of the record company and the management. I hope no one within the band is disappointed; they have not said anything to me. As I say, it was Roger’s ideas. Paicey loves it. Don wanted a more heavy metal cover.

About “Rapture Of The Deep“:

I think Roger did a fantastic job under great pressure. I have no doubt that it
is the best cover Deep Purple has done since In Rock”

Read the whole interview here.
Thanks to Classic Rock Revisited for the information.

Dream Theater continue their tradition of covering a classic album in it’s entirety at any two-night stands in the same city. Earlier this month they performed Deep Purple’s “Made in Japan” at two shows in Japan (January 13 in Tokyo and January 15 in Osaka). The setlist was:
01. Highway Star
02. Child in Time
03. Smoke on the Water
04. The Mule / Drum Solo
05. Strange Kind of Woman
06. Lazy
07. Space Truckin’

Take care
Benny Holmstrom

A few years ago in Lichtenvoorde at the Arrow Festival I was hugely disappointed. A very obligatory set, no inspiration. I thought they had lost it, and told myself, ‘no more Purple concerts.’ I’ve seen them many times and it is enough.

BOY, WAS I WRONG!

The album Rapture of the Deep was too good to be true, in fact, it is brilliant. And when opportunity knocked, I wanted to give them a chance, so I went to Brussels.

WHAT A SHOW!

I’m not going into detail, but every song was spot-on, lighting was just flashy enough, the sound was great, and Gillan sounded better than ever.

My favourites were Rapture of the Deep, Perfect Strangers, Highway Star and Junkyard Blues. And all the other ones were also magnificent. Keep up the good work, guys, and next time I will be there again!

Walter Coolen

I arrived at 19:10 at the sold out venue. First things first: getting me a new T-shirt. They are quite nice, I’ve seen a lot worse Deep Purple T-shirts (with dragons, etc.) The long sleeve I bought is a real nice one, it is one of the most beautiful ones I have in my Deep Purple-collection of 25 (not counting Rainbow and Blackmore’s Night). The special tye-dye shirt is great as well.

This was the first time in my Deep Purple gigs career of 20+ concerts that I was not wearing one of my t-shirts or my special patched (Deep Purple and Rainbow) jeans jacket, first time that I was at a gig without Johan (he had to work)[You mean the Johan? Regards! 🙂 – Rasmus], and the first time that I was sitting down in chairs (except for the Concerto tour).

Normally I am standing in front of the stage among the wriggling crowd. Am I showing my age? Most of the people sitting around me were the same age or even older, except for some young couples snogging. The standing area front stage was 9/10 filled. It was rather cold in the hall, but I reckoned that this would change soon enough.

Why do people whistle when the hall-lights go down? Right of the strike of 20:00 drums started beating, a nice warm bass-sound. But the singer… He walked on stage, acting like he was the main act. I did not know who they are and don’t care to know neither. The drummer was not bad, and the guitar player knew his stuff, but I did not like the songs. During the first one, there were some strange explosion like sounds through the PA.

I was sitting there looking quite amused by the silliness showed by the band. By the time they did the second song, I already was having a headache. I felt quite ashamed that a part of the band came from Bruges (as the singer told us). Luckily I had to sit through this for only half an hour. And yet they received quite a descent applause. Maybe the audience was showing their grattitude that it was over?

At 20:45 the standing area was packed, after all we were with 8.000 (Gent in 1994: only 3-4.000. On the other hand: Genk 1985 – my first Deep Purple concert – that hall was filled with 13.000 fans).

At 20:57 another quick pee-break. You could hear a lot of noise in the hallway, but it was just noise, nothing recognizable. But suddenly one could hear huge cheering, and I was too late to see the start of PICTURES OF HOME. I wondered how Roger would look without his bandana, bald?

Left and right of the stage were some big video screens, the left one just did not hide Paice. It also was the first time that I saw his drum kit filmed from up above, I did not know he had that amount of stuff. (I do have almost all their videos and DVDs, but simply had not found the time to watch them properly).

Pity that the video had not the right picture size: seen on that screen, Steve had a very short guitar. But it was a great addition, seeing him pulling and stretching those strings, and seeing Don fiddling around with his fingers and even his footwork. At the end of the song he was interpolating something á la Jon Lord, can’t remember what exactly though.

Nice touch to play a not known song THINGS I NEVER SAID and though hardly no one ever heard it, this drew quite a good response from the audience. Pity it is not on the album, if this happened a few years ago, I would have bought the Japanese one as well, but it looks like I am a bit mellowed in my ‘collecteur’ madness. The Hammond is quite high up in the mix, good to hear it properly again.

Gillan: ”Good to be back here, love the warm welcome. We did not do it.” WRONG MAN. Roger was having a great time. I first heard this song in Düsseldorf and hoped it stayed in their live show, so it did, a marvellous rock song.

“I was in a bar once, he told me his story over a few beers. What was he called? Eduard? Commonly known as Ted”. TED THE MECHANIC. Good to hear that one again.

LIVING WRECK. What a start! This IS Deep Purple, the Deep Purple I am fan of. After Steve’s –too short- solo, Gillan was a bit late with his singing. Yet I was slightly disappointed, maybe my hopes were set too high after reading the earlier reviews?

RAPTURE OF THE DEEP had a powerful 70’s intro. This really has Perfect Strangers-potential. Gillan no longer bangs on the bongos, but is using a skinless-tambourine. Was I the only one between the sitting people (around me) who was singing and moving around on the music? This song was applauded real loud.

Gillan told us stuff about “beautiful bodies, caterpillars turning into butterflies…” BEFORE TIME BEGAN. The first minutes of the song I was thinking that they could loose this one live, the audience stood there à la what-is-this? But during the second part of this song: WOW! Strange, I heard this song quite a few times already, and still it has to grow on me more? At the moment again I am listening to it, and it sounds quite different on the CD.

The next spoken remarks of Big Ian had too much reverb on his voice. Can’t remember what he said. But the songs were CONTACT LOST and WELL DRESSED GUITAR. these are becoming classics. From where I was sitting I had a great view of the clapping hands.

These songs went straight into LAZY. I missed the good old Hammond intro. For a loooooooooooong time this was one of my favourite live songs, but this time… hmmmm… were they going through the motions? I don’t know, pity. But the crowd went into overdrive.

“Thaank you, and now… the most eclectable of all entertainers… Don Airey” Said in a tombstone-voice. His intro was Klaus Shulze-Tangerine Dream-like. Delicious! The crowd was clapping along on his piano tunes, he was doing stuff we were used to hear from Jon; and Star Wars – which was, according to reviewers, missed at previous concerts on this tour. This could have gone on for a long time. I really was sitting there with a happy smile on my face!! The sound was really powerful: our seats were shaking.

Of course this changed into PERFECT STRANGERS which was greeted with great enthusiasm. Did I already write that I had great views of the raving crowd? Nice to sit so close to have a nice view of the stage, and seeing the audience and video screens at the same time. Though my bum starts to hurt (one is never satisfied *sigh*). And, as usual, I missed the green laser beams, this song simply demands them. Don’s solo had a different sound, did I like it? Dunno.

Wait a minute, haven’t I read in other reviews something about “Back to Back” Did I miss that one? Or didn’t they do that?

“Thank you, you are the 6th member…” JUNKYARD BLUES. This could become a second Lazy, it sounded very similar, but fresher. It somehow reminded me of Ritchie’s mistakes between Smoke and errr… Strange Kind of Woman, or was it Woman from Tokyo?

Had to take a pee-break again, and when I came back and heard the music, I had not the faintest idea what they were playing, and still can’t remember. It had a great drum sound (according to previous reviews it could have been “Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming” but I doubt that. I am afraid that I have to wait until other reviews appear on the net).

“The last call for the flight to England, thank you”. And though I am fan of Deep Purple since 1972, I have written down in my little notebook: Highway Star, but it was SPACE TRUCKIN’ (see, I really have the Blackmore-syndrome) Again there was too much reverb on Ian’s voice. The drum part in the song could have been a nice short solo, but no. Pity. The crowd was absolutely ballistic.

I also want to thank the security in the hall: every time people were standing in front of us – the sitting ones – the security gently send them away. Thank you!

A short splendid bass intro which Steve picked up (and now I was loosing it completely, am I really getting Alzheimer?) what song was that again? A nice playful up tempo thingy. More more more! This is the reason why I became a real Deep Purple fan for! I missed my long hair (I am a kind of skin head, partly because of my job (head chef in the army) and partly because long hair looks silly when it starts halfway your skull J) I was sitting there really headbanging! Oh, it was HIGHWAY STAR! Peerless!!! Gillan was swirling around his mike standard like a real hard rocker, which drew wild response from the crowd, the place really went nuts.

Suddenly the lights went down, a few seconds of silence, and then… world’s most know chords: SMOKE ON THE WATER. Again too much reverb, or was it the echo off the hall? This was the first time I noticed Roger’s Rickenbacker (I don’t know I’ve ever seen or had taken notice of it).

I must say that Don really was the hero of the evening, he worked his ass off.

At 22:30 the cheering went louder and louder, after a minute:

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here together to rock and roooll” (said in a preacher’s voice): SPEED KING. This is the first time I see the girl, sitting left to me, move to the music. After this magnificent song Ian shook hands with Steve, like he really meant it. And YES! We got a drum solo, even the one hand roll! *Nananananaaaaaaaaa*

Thank you Deep Purple for reading our reviews and taking them into account.

Gillan again was interpolating some oldies amongst them, like Mary Lou, and after a whisper with Steve a piece of “Strange Kind of Woman”! Thank you!!!

After a very short but furious applause (due to lack of time between the songs) it went straight into BLACK NIGHT with an awesome Glover. Again Ian was playing – a bit ridiculous – the high air-organ, but most in the audience are mimicking him.

At 22:52 it all was over, 5 minutes under a 2 hour show. I liked the part where they stepped –on the video screen- in their gearboxes.

I took no pictures as it was forbidden, though the whole evening people were using their cell-phone-cameras. And like it was forbidden to smoke – every second you could see flashing a lighter.

They left out “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye” and replaced it with “Speed King”. Can’t remember if they played SIFLS.

I stayed a bit on my seat to avoid the crowd, had another beer and just as I arrived at my car I received a text message from Johan asking me how it was.

Michel De Pourcq