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Trump Marina, Atlantic City, NJ, USA
February 28, 2004

After spending the better part of the day trying to remember how many DP shows I have actually seen since the Burn tour (after four pre-show pints I concluded somewhere between 13 and 15), I just returned from seeing the band for the first time in my hometown of Atlantic City, NJ.
A word about the venue. The Grand Cayman ballroom is as named. A ballroom, one level and the seating, save for some small elevation in the rear sections, is basically one level. The low ceiling was no doubt the reason that the film portions of the show did not take place. The good news is the room was very intimate. I'd say 1500 seats at best, and they were all good. My son and I were in the fifth row just left of center, in front of Roger. It was like seeing the band in a pub. We were hearing the stage amps and not the PA, which was only disappointing in that Steve seemed low at times.
This show ranked with the House Of Blues tour as one of the best I have seen. What a pleasure seeing a full two hour set after seeing much shorter shed tours the last few years.
My only disappointment in the song selection would be that they dropped House of Pain. The new songs were well recieved and Silver Tounge is a great opener.
Ian Gillan sounded very strong, considering the frequency of shows they are doing. I really enjoyed Don Airey. He fits in so well, and added a nice touch by including a snipet of Born in the USA in his solo for the Jersey fans. A very thoughtful gesture.
My only complaint is a major one. No Ian Paice drum solo. If they are going to reach back to the 70s for half of the show, the solo is a must, even if it only lasts two minutes or so. I though it was coming during Hush, which would have been a nice touch given that Ian is the only member of the band left who played on the original.
That said, a great night with my son and the nice people we met at the show. Looking forward to seeing the big finish of the tour Monday night in New York.
Eric Eisenstein

Last nights concert in Atlantic City was one of the best DP shows I have ever seen (I've seen them nine times since 1985). The band performed beautifully, they were very tight, had tons of energy and clearly expressed joy on stage.
I really liked the set list, opening with a set based on more recent material, and then ending with Machine Head, before encores Speed King and Hush.
It is great to see them get better and better by the year. Two final things: 1) Please release a live album from this tour! 2) I am so grateful for Steve Morse's contributions to this band. He's absolutely fantastic!
Fredrik Bryntesson

I arrived at Trump Marina in Atlantic City 15 minutes before Thin Lizzy was suppossed to go on stage. Since I had never seen John Sykes live before, I ran through the Casino to get to the Grand Cayman ballroom. When I walked into the ballroom, I saw a carpeted room and huge Chandeliers and I thought, what kind of place is this to have a Deep Purple concert?
Anyway, the venue was sold out with 3,000 or more people in attendance, and Thin Lizzy hit the stage with Jailbreak. John Sykes was great, he was very talkative and he really tried to get the audience involved. All of Thin Lizzy were professionals and smiled at everyone, and Michael Lee, their drummer, was superb.
Emerald and Bad Reputation were the highlights of the Thin Lizzy set.
I know there were a lot of people recently who had complained that Thin Lizzy had a bad mix, but I thought they sounded superb.
John Sykes told all of us to wait for one of the best bands in the world, Deep Purple. Man, did he call it right. I hope John Sykes didn't mind that I was yelling "Bad Bad Boys" when Thin Lizzy was leaving the stage. (I had to throw in a little Whitesnake!)
Deep Purple hit the stage with a good version of Silver Tongue, but it was weak in comparison to the next song, Woman from Tokyo.
Don Airey was the highlight of the show, and he has perfected his style with Deep Purple. When he played, the room shook. During his solo, Don played the intro to Ozzy's Mr. Crowley (love that keyboard solo). Perfect Strangers saw Don shine again, when he played this absolutely amazing but distorted keyboard solo. The last time I saw Don play with DP in 2002, he still had some bugs to work out. Not so this time. He hit notes that I have only heard Jon Lord play in the past.
Things really took off when Perfect Strangers was played. All the DP fans started to hi-five each other and scream like little kids, me included. It was great, like an old family being reunited. [Kids screaming and all! Rasmus]
Then the Machine Head songs were played, and the volume went way up to 11. [Couldn't they just have made 10 a little louder? Rasmus] If you closed your eyes during songs like Maybe I'm a Leo, Space Truckin' and Never Before, you could imagine that Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore were in the room. DP were like a band reborn.
Deep Purple closed the show with Speed King and Hush, which according to Ian Gillan, were written before the electric revolution in 1843.
I was disappointed that Black Night wasn't played, so I sang the riff when Roger was thanking everyone. I think he was upset that it couldn't be played too. There must have been some problems with the amount of time to play.
All in all, I liked seeing Deep Purple as a headliner, without the Scorpions, without Skynyrd. The ballroom was meant for Deep Purple. The room trembled to Don's organ and Paicey's drums. Since I like to feel the music, this was great, and it was the best DP show I have seen to date. The only thing that was missed, was a drum solo from Ian Paice.
Later, I was playing a slot machine in the casino, where I could still hear DP fans singing Smoke on the Water. Very cool.
John Tartaglia