![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan4.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/paice2.jpg)
Box of rock – Katowice
I heard my favourite band in Spodek once again. Actually it was my third concert of DP.
The support band was SBB, polish rock dinosaurs. They warmed the audience quite well. The drum duet solo at the end of the performance was excellent. But of course everybody was waiting for the main dish.
The Purples started at 9 pm. I stood near stage so I saw clearly all details. On both sites of stage there were put 2 screens, in my opinion a little bit too low. But the idea was very good. As usually during current tour they began with Pictures of Home. It wasn’t a big bang opening track like mostly played on previous concerts Highway Star but enough well to introduce the right atmosphere.
The setlist was similar to other concerts playing on this tour. There were no surprises. The tracks from ROTD were accepted by the audience very well. Wrong Man and Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye sounded very powerful. It was seen that band eagerly plays a new material. Other songs from the new album included title song aren’t big hits and sounded very heavily even sleepy. I don’t know why DP doesn’t play Money Talks or Clearly Quite Absurd. Lazy was a small dissapointment, too short, limited solos, I heard many better performances of this song. Perfect Strangers was played without striking refrain. Maybe I miss Lord’s organs. [Excuse me? – Rasmus] The concert’s impulsion were Steve Morse’s solos. The performance on Contact Lost was brilliant. His fingers were flowing on guitar’s strings.
Ian Gillan dedicated this song to casualties of disaster in Katowice when the roof collapsed. It was a very pleasant accent for us. At the end of concerts Steve played some rock standards for example Stairway to Heaven. It looks that he had got a big willingness to play more. Im a little bit dissapointed of Ian Paice’s solo playing at the end of bonus track Hush. Ian looked a little bit tired. Don Airey’s solo was very similar to previous polish concerts: of course Chopin, polish anthem and Star Wars themes.
Maybe it would be better to develope cosmic parts remaining tracks of Vangelis. The greatests performances were: Ted the Mechanic when the audience gathered in Spodek loudly sang TED! TED! TED! and closing classic track: Black Night. Roger Glover was raising on stage showing his acrobatic skills. Steve Morse leaded a guitar dialogue with singing people, that was a magnificent finish. I’m sure it wasn’t the best concert of DP, but nobody regrets that Purples came again.
Advantages: Steve Morse’s solo, Ian Gillan palying harmonica, Ian Gillan’s short talks, strong bass of Glover, funny introduction of concert when on screen were showed members of band coming out of box and going to a stage.
Disadvantages: short drums solos, some tiring songs, polish accents, lack of ballads like Sometimes I feel like screaming, no surprises.
Przemek Zarubin
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing