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Exhibition & Convention Center, Daegu, Korea
March 26, 2004

Silver Tongue
Woman From Tokyo
I Got Your Number
Strange Kind Of Woman
Bananas
Knocking At Your Back Door
Contact Lost
Morse Solo / Well-Dressed Guitar
Don Airey Solo (incl. Arirang - Korean trad. music) / Perfect Strangers
Highway Star
Doing It Tonight
Pictures Of Home
Lazy
When A Blind Man Cries
Space Truckin'
Smoke On The Water

Hush
Hit The Road Jack
Black Night

Silver Tongue - Progressive intro and ending guitar solo was added to the studio format. The main pentatonic riff by Steve blew off the hall. It was the great vibe and groove!
Woman From Tokyo - Kids stood up and rushed to the front of stage. At the end of the song, Steve shook hands with some screaming kids and did not return to the playing mode. He missed some backing riffs for that. It was such a crazy mood. Don’s electric piano solo was quite similar to Jon’s playing.
I Got Your Number - Steve and Roger sang back vocals. Arpeggio style ending was played with distorted guitar, not in a quite mode as in the studio recording.
Strange Kind of Woman - Ian screamed at the end of song like the album of Made in Japan. I was surprised at his gray hair but felt that it was back to the year of 1972!
5. Bananas - Don’s typical keyboard style was shortly presented at the intro. The highlight of the song, the call and response of guitar and keyboard fired the stage. Steve changed the progression of solo pattern from the original recording. After unison playing with keyboard, he started melody centered playing first and then, fast picking shred pattern followed, which was vice versa in the recording session. Dynamic chord change at the ending part was dramatic itself.
Knocking on Your Back Door - All of you may know the orgasmic moment of this song. Keyboard started and Ian’s drumming led the exciting moment. It was typical but always exciting.
Contact Lost / Well Dressed Guitar - Ian introduced the story behind the tune and it started with reverbed guitar melody by Steve. Between two tunes, Steve played his volume technique solo, which has been his trademark in the guitar solo time. He changed pick up position frequently while knobbing the main volume. It was another kind of virtuosity. If anyone listened to the tune with his eyes closed, he may not imagine those busy works on Steve’s guitar. Final main melody was based on the guitar solo performance in the Total Abandon 99 DVD.
Don Airey’s Keyboard Solo - I waited for this moment at this show. Starting with Jon’s Bach on to This (?) [Also known as Bach's Toccata... Rasmus], he showed various style of playing from classic to ragtime, and he included Korean traditional folk song Arirang and main theme of Star Wars. His progressive style ending was continued to warn the crowd of beginning Perfect Strangers.
Perfect Strangers - Yes, they finally returned with the echo of… Ian Gillan danced like Persian dancer.
Highway Star - The intro was somewhat different. Roger’s bass line (the signal of the song!) was accompanied with Steve’s chicken picking bluegrass filled licks. Returning to the main riff, all the crowd went mad. At the keyboard solo part, Don played quite a lot like the original Machine Head studio recording. I was pleased with that. (Steve, as he always did, he played original studio version licks.)
Doing It Tonight - It was a dancing time as the reviewer of Osaka show wrote oin The Highway Star tour review. The ending was adopted from that of Pictures of Innocence.
Pictures of Home - Typical performance as the band has always done since Mark 7 began, but nobody could argue about that because it’s always superb!
Lazy - Another moment where Don showed his skill. I thought he was funkier than Jon.
When a Blind Man Cries - Ian told to the crowd that “the next song is a new song.” It really started with the minor pentatonic intro which I had never heard, but shortly after that, it changed into this heartbreaking soulful song. Steve’s artificial harmonics with mournful melody echoed in the hall.
Space Truckin' - Ian Paice exploded with his drum solo. His rolling was really heavy.
Smoke on the Water - Steve played benjo styled fast licks with celtic mood, and he pushed the button, then fired! Crowd’s screaming was louder than performance of the band.
Hush
Black Night -
At the beginning, Roger played funky bass solo which was very cool. Ian Gillan sang abruptly “Silent Night, Holy Night…”. Steve accompanied him with baroque styled licks. The sing along of Black Night was followed.
Dae-Won Lee

This was my 11th Deep Purple concert in my four countries. I'd previously seen the band live in Australia (March, 2001), Germany (September, 2002) and England (September, 2002). I am from New Zealand but currently working here in Korea as an English Teacher. So it was a real bonus to see Deep Purple in a much more foreign territory on their truely "worldwide" Bananas Tour.
I was a bit skeptical as to how both the band and audience would react here in Korea as opposed to a typical Western Deep Purple show, but any fears of a quiet, conservative gig were soon dashed. As I will explain, the show here in Daegu, Korea was a very happy affair.
The venue was relatively small which gave a nice personal feel to it. I was seated about 20 rows back. The new song off Bananas was unfamiliar to most of the Korean audience but Woman From Tokyo was instantly recognisable and I saw some of the fans on their feet and the start of a group of younger fans gathering towards the stage. A few more songs into the show and I too joined the enthusiastic front section of fans.
Ian Gillan seemed to be in an especially good mood tonight constantly waving to and hand-slapping the fans as well as plenty of bowing, smiling and praise for the crowd. It was obvious the band were having a really fun time. I can't count the number of times Ian told the audience they were "number one".
Highlights for me were Perfect Strangers (I never get sick of hearing that song), the solo work from both Steve Morse and Don Airey which was often very effective as a dramatic introduction to some of the classics always keeping the audience guessing. And of course the first encore Hush where Ian Gillan proudly shouted "1968!" before the opening guitar riff.
For the Korean audience in general, the run down of the last four songs before the encore (Lazy, Blind Man, Truckin', Smoke) saw an incredible enthusiasm and the sing-along to Smoke On The Water compared favourably to any Western audience I'd been a part of in the past.
I thought the new songs from Bananas came across very well live, in fact they stood up to early 70's and mid 80's Purple classics! How the band continue to play show after show for months on end at such an energy level is just unbelievable. I thaaaaaaaaaank you Deep Purple!
If there are any Kiwi fans reading this review I strongly recommend you go see the boys in Christchurch and/or Auckland at their first NZ shows since 1984! You won't be disappointed.
Ben Doyle

 

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