![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan1.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/paice.jpg)
A rock in the park
London, Ontario: It’s been a long wait since first listening to Deep Purple on the Machine Head album but it was worth it hearing them live for the first time.
At an outdoor concert venue on the Thames River surrounded by huge trees, Deep Purple exploded on to the stage playing Pictures of Home. It was very loud but no distortion at all. Awesome!!
The only trouble of the night was when amps blew three times on the first few Purple songs. Singer Ian Gillan would get a couple of lines in and then his power would go. Afterward he thanked the crowd for their “vibes,” which “really mean a lot to us.”
From the 3rd song on with no more technical problems, Purple played fantastic. I believe it was the same set list as the St. Louis concert. Every song had the very large crowd of 10,500+ fans getting right into it.
Next to being there and actually hearing my favourite group, it was great to see how much fun the 5 guys were having on stage. When you watch the Copenhagen 1972 concert and the Perihelion DVD, they seem to be having the same great time performing for their fans. That’s what it’s all about.
Thanks for the fantastic show, Deep Purple! Hope you’re back to Rock the Park in 2008!
Brad Grimwood
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing