Neither peeved nor pleased

A pleasant evening, but more interesting than exciting. I have not been to a Deep Purple concert before and I am not sure I will need to again.

The support band, The Planets, provided a lively selection from their album. These classically trained youngsters managed to butcher a number of pieces of music with arrangements of music written by musicians of greater talent. Despite destroying perfectly good pieces of classical music, they offered a good mix of styles, greatly enhanced by their above average abilities to play their instruments. I suspect we shall hear more of them in the future.

Deep Purple played well. A good mixture of new and old. Some extraordinary good guitar playing and drumming. Mr Gillan appeared to be coughing from time to time, but otherwise screamed and belted out the lyrics with a fine, polished performance.

At one point a guy in the audience got onto the stage and had to be escorted off. Later, several folk wandered to the stage wanting to shake hands with the band whilst they played. Whilst accepted at rock concerts, I don't advise anyone doing it at a classical concert. [Why do it at all? Rasmus] Very few folk waved their lighters around their heads and there was limited hysteria at the end of the concert. Maybe the average age of the audience was too high. Maybe the concert was less than fully inspirational. Although I failed to jump up and down and wave my arms around, a few fans in front of me made up for it.

The lighting was good, but the sound system was less than excellent. The bass was badly distorted. Perhaps my old ears are going faulty, but I would have liked a little more treble. Turn up the high frequencies, Mr Mixerman.

Tim Andrews

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