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Ripening 2 reviews

Ripening 1

Berlin special

Festival, Nandrin, Belgium
August 10, 2003

At the entrance, one of the bouncers gave me a real fright. As he could tell by our (Johan and me) t-shirts, he asked us If we were there for Deep Purple. Yep. Didn’t we hear it on the radio? Deep Purple would not show up today! Huh? Yeah, they will be performing tomorrow. Then I knew it was a (bad) joke.

I found an official ticket on the ground and picked it up, because the one I got at the store was a real plain and ugly one.

At 09:30 pm, it still was bright, we were in front of the stage, it still was light. The roadies were setting up stage, and I tried to take some pix, which were only so-so: I moved too much. As usual the tall guys were in front of me. Loads of people, I think it almost was sold out. We were at the open-air stage; there also were 2 tents, the northern one and… yes, the other one. The smell of joints was all around me. Some big, pretty drunk dudes were chanting ‘Smoke on the Water’.

At 09:55 the machine on the right started blowing smoke on the stage, and the audience (which was quite huge by now, as far I could witness, because I was approx on row 9) started to get impatient. One of the roadies left stage; hold the bass guitar in his hands.

Spot on 10 pm Gillan, Paice, Glover, Airy and Morse entered stage under a huge applause, started immediately with

Highway Star. Right at the beginning Gillan hold his songbook up to one of the roadies. The mood on stage, as front stage, was already awesome! One downside: after taking about 20 pictures, one of the big security guys signalled me that I have to stop photographing or he would confiscate my camera! He did it so convincing that I cowardly putted it back in its bag. Well, more time to enjoy the show…

“Fantastic! Thank you very much, great to see ya”! He was interrupted by ‘ta da da daa’, the intro of Knocking on your Back Door. Great to hear it again! After all, it has been sine 1994 (hey! That’s almost 10 years!) Since I’ve seen and heard it live. If I have to choose between this one and ‘I’m Alone’, the choice is easy. Pity Steve’s first solo was quite short, after this one, something was wrong with the interaction between Ian’s singing and the music by the others, could not say what, but it simply sounded crooked. They also changed the endnotes of the song, which was quite strange - like they were playing a different song - but amazing it was.

“Thank you! Oh, it’s warm” (it was!) “We’re gonna do some new stuff and some old ones, and this…papa padam…”Pictures Of Home. Never been one of my favourites, but I grew quite fond of it over the years. One thing that I noticed was that there were a lot of (real) Purple fans in the crowd - more than at the festival in Roeselare in May - but we did not see anyone from the Belgian fan club. Lots of them singing along, even with the lesser-known songs, which was quite fun to see. Again everybody on stage was smiling, like we certainly are used by now. At one moment Roger was standing right in front of me, mid stage. This could have been a great photo! Steve’s solo was fine, but, alas, too short again. Next was Don’s spot. He is brilliant, though he is not Jon! (And as I am now listening and - with half an eye - looking at the Perihelion DVD… as Gina is not at home ;-) ). The solo Roger performed was the longest of them all and great. This drew wild response from the crowd. The band was really enjoying them, joking with each other and smiling. Again they played that classical thingy; they also did it in Roeselare, still don’t know what it is, maybe something by Focus? Ian Paice stood up, applauding his comrades.

“I thaaaaaaaaaank you!” Don played some church music, much à la Lord. Which was the beautiful intro to Lazy. Like he often does, Steve stood next to Don upon his own little stage. Gillan had his mouth organ upside down in his mouth. He did not throw it into the audience, neither his second one. Pity; I would love to catch one, maybe one day… or are they getting too expensive? He moved over a bit, so Steve could take his place in the middle of the stage to solo. After the song, Gillan explained and demonstrated us the thing of playing a mouth organ upside down: because it was in his pocket (“a pocket full of air”). Which was quite funny.

“We have a new album, called Bananas, this is one from it: Haunted”. The intro was delicious. I don’t know, but I seem to know a lot of people who are not fond of this song, and they seem to prefer the other new song to this one. Maybe because it is not a ‘real’ Purple song? More like a Gillan one? During Steve’s - short again - solo spot, Ian was doing the wave, along with the audience. He also was coughing quite a lot. I had the feeling that his voice was worse than it used to be lately. There were some blown condoms flying through the air. Steve told us, pointing at Ian:” it’s his”. This song really got the crowd excited.

“Now we have a very slow one, with only 3 words, from the beginning…” Speed King. After singing the first part, Ian went back stage, looked at his songbook, went away, returned and had another glance at it. The trading between Ian and Steve was very very short, only a line or two. Kind of a proof that Ian had voice trouble? The notes were too high for him. Pity. (By cheer coincidence, I am listening now to Speed King on the DVD)

“This is a tune, a very lyrical tune, about nudity…The Well dressed…”. Formidastic, astonishing, breathtaking, genius, impressive…it made my neck hairs stand up. The crowd really went loopy for it. What a cracker it was! Don really played the orchestra impressive, everybody was clapping along. The whole place exploded after this song, which was the real highlight of the evening!

“Here’s one, a new song, it’s all about what the little bitch meant…I’ve got your Number.” Again, during the song he looked at the songbook. But, hey! I am 45, and I do forget things, so why shouldn’t he allow to do? The whole band, except for Little Ian, sang along. The piece in the middle sounded like something from Abandon. Though I am not too fond of this song, the next part is fabulous. Gillan still did not have his bongos on stage; instead he played the tambourine, or air organ.

« Bananas, bananas, Chiquita, mmmmmmm, yummy. OK, here we go!” A dark and heavy organ sound, which switched over to the piano, to play some boogie-woogie; magnificent. I still prefer Jon Lord. Not a bad word about Don!!! But after listening 35 years to the Lord of the Hammond…

Next his playing became more futuristic, which lead us to the Star Wars theme. Excellent, but too short - again! Perfect Strangers. The crowd really went into overdrive! The green spotlights worked out fine; I still miss the laser beams from the eighties. I really would love to have the tape of the video wall! The filming was done very professionally. Gillan was telling us some football results; I wonder if most of the audience knew what he meant, and what the reason was for doing so.

Next thing we heard was “Whole Lotta Love”; then 4 more known songs, which I could not jot down, ‘You Really Got Me’. (There was a real disturbing dude in front of us. The big guy standing next to me just picked him up, and put him down on the other side. The dude, scared to death, just walked of.) The radio tune continued with ‘Penny Lane; Back In Black’, which changed my neighbour into a wild man. Of course the next tune turned the crowd into an insane mob: Smoke on the Water. They were so wild, I could not write into my little notebook any more. (And, yes, I still can enjoy the music a lot, when I am jotting down in my little book.) Everybody was going ‘tatatadaa tadadaa tadadaa… Again there was trouble in front of that big guy (this time by someone else), again he did the same, and again the other one was too scared to say anything else but ‘I did not do nothing’. By now Big Ian was wearing some sunglasses, and because these guys distracted me, I don’t know where he got them. The sing along was longer than usual, even Don tried 3 times to start playing his Hammond, but Ian still was conducting the raving crowd. “You are amazing! I did not know you sing so well”. It looked like he really meant it!

Ian Paice started the intro to Space Truckin’. I don’t know what Steve was playing, something different, something majestic. Then right furious into the real song. Paicey did a - much too short - solo. Where has the time gone, where they did 30 minutes versions? *sigh*

At 11:13 the first part was all history.

One minute later they returned to Hush. After the first ‘nananana nananananaaaa’ Gillan already started to sing the first verse; and mouthed “ooops”. The chucca chucca part was nice.

Roger’s intro to Black Night was gigantic. Already everybody knew which song was to come, but he kept on stretching his celebrating solo. And while Steve was soloing, Ian was dancing around and talking to us (without using his mike), the only thing I could make out was ‘fly away’. There was the rock n’ roll part (Gary Glitter), which was quite funny, and it all ended with a duet with the audience, instead of the usual Steve- Ian duet.

It all was - much too soon - over at 11:29. They played exactly 90 minutes. Which seems to be their new standard, too short songs, too little solos. Maybe I am born too late?

It was - again - a good, great gig. Though compared to Roeselare, which was their first concert of this 2003 summer tour, Ian has lost some of his voice. He still sounded great, but… know what I mean?

Johan was not too pleased with the concert. He’s seen them about a 100 times, and told me they now were like a jukebox, and that Gillan’s voice was real bad.

Well, maybe I’ll see ya in Düsseldorf in November anyway.

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