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The Geriatric Tour
Deep Purple live at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion (Woodlands, USA 2017-08-18)
If it’s OK with everyone, I’d like to do something I’ve never done. I’d like to write a pre concert review & follow up after I see it to see how I stacked up.
After a 5.5 hour drive, we arrive @ The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion just North of Houston Texas. First up is Edgar Winter. After waiting 40+ years to see him, it would be an understatement to say I’m not jacked up! FANTASTIC performance but way to short. 5 song set clocking in at 30 minutes just wasn’t right. If you see this show, arrive early as you don’t want to miss Edgar Winter!! Not enough time to work up a sweat even tho with the humidity it felt like 110!!!!
Next up is one of my all time favs, AC. Good 15 song set with the standouts being Under My Wheels, Halo Of Flies, Killer, Eighteen, School’s Out & the new single, Paranoiac Personality. Downers were Poison & Feed My Frankenstein. AC hasn’t put out until now a good album since WTMN. Nita Strauss is a very good guitarist but she’s not Glen. PLEASE Alice, 1 last tour with the old band!!!Show clocked in at 1 hour 25 minutes.
Next up is the 3rd greatest band of all time (we could debate this till the cows come home) DEEP PURPLE
Right out of the gate comes Highway Star, Fireball & Strange Kind Of Woman. Bang,Bang,Bang back to back non-stop. Great way to open up what has become such a predictable set. Being just the 5th show of the tour & coming off a night off the band sounds great. Ian’s voice is pretty good all things considered. Show clocks out at 1 hour 30 minutes with only 11 songs on the set. I have a real problem with this set list. First why Lazy, Space Truckin’ & Smoke? This is probably the last tour so why keep playing these 3 songs into the ground when there’s at least 40 other songs you could play? SMH The highlight of the night is The Surprising. Encore is Time For Bedlam & Hush. NO BLACK NIGHT!!! What a shame.
Overall a very enjoyable night seeing 3 living legends…. PROBABLY for the last time.
FYI… Full set lists can be viewed at Setlist.fm
review by Sammy Romeo
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Eggs is eggs…
August 18th, 2017 at 11:20Made me laugh that you questioned that they are still playing ‘Lazy’, ‘Space Truckin’ and ‘Smoke…’ but didn’t like it when they left out ‘Black Night.’ I’d be happy if I never heard ‘Black Night’ again, and I think ‘Space Truckin’ needs to go as well as Fireball (Ian hasn’t really sounded good on the latter since the 70s). I saw on a recent set list that ‘Contact Lost’ was brought back, something from ‘Purpendicular’ would be better (would love to hear ‘Ted…’ again), and then there’s the superb ‘Seventh Heaven’ or ‘Watching The Sky.’ I reckon ‘Loosen My Strings’ would be welcomed back by the fans. For an oldie, how about ‘Fool’s’?
August 18th, 2017 at 11:43Geriatric tour when you have turned 70 years old ,like Ritchie Blackmore with his pain at his fingers and shoulders and his raising belly, or Paice with his head strikes, or Hughes and his heart surgery and Coverdale and his metabolism problems. Geriatric tour means that you are an old rock star like Chuck Berry or B B King playing the same old hits just for money.
August 18th, 2017 at 15:29This is a greatest hits tour. AC only is playing one new song in a 15 song set. I could nit pick, but getting 3 Morse era songs out of 10 isn’t terrible…based on the need to give American audiences the hits…or they will leave. Honestly Fireball is a bit of a chance (although I love their version of it). I’d replace Uncommon Man with Hip Boots and SKOW with Birds of Prey (with an extended outro solo that turns into a Morse solo bit…
But this setlist is
Honestly, they should just let Cooper go last on all of the shows, because he is playing longer, has the ridiculous stage show and his circus style atmosphere will keep the masses in their seats to the end. I am looking forward to the show (I have never seen AC live) but we all know now that standing on stage and playing spectacularly on great songs isn’t enough for a festival crowd. Shame, but it is what it is.
August 18th, 2017 at 19:32Yeah…
“why keep playing these 3 songs into the ground when there’s at least 40 other songs you could play?”
but
“NO BLACK NIGHT!!! What a shame.”
Whatever they leave out, someone is going to miss it. Far less likely on songs that (sorry to be blunt) only few people know of anyway
August 19th, 2017 at 00:08“Next up is the 3rd greatest band of all time…” We can discuss about ranking, but I agree with the Holy Trinity.
August 19th, 2017 at 03:03Just left the same concert at the Mitchell Pavilion and feel as though we might have seen two different shows. Edgar Winter was exceptional. His voice and musical abilities were stellar. God bless Alice Cooper. Always a crowd pleaser but more radio hits and fewer lesser known tunes. I’m old, I want what I paid for. Generation Landslide would have been nice. The shocking disappoint was Deep Purple. Either their sound system is absolute rubbish or they stink. They sounded horrid from our reserved seats. I was not alone in this opinion. Sounded like mud. Couldn’t decipher what they were playing. Off key. Filler garbage that had our whole section complaining that they wanted their money back. 45 min of nothing. I don’t want an interpretation of Smoke on the Water. I want Smoke on the Water. Hush? My Woman from Tokyo? Could u really hear Lazy in all that blare? No. No songs were recognizable due to muddled sound system. By the time we left, our reserved section was nearly empty. Very sad. Very disappointed. Deep Purple was my first concert as a child. SOTW the first real song I learned note for note on my Fender. I could have done a better job and I’m just somebody’s mother for crying out loud. Awful. Just awful. Ticket takers were laughing at the numbers leaving. Such a shame. Hate to see them go out like that but you have to be truthful about these things. They just weren’t good.
August 19th, 2017 at 05:50Yep..I’d say drop Fireball and Space Truckin and and go with something from Infinite maybe Johnnys Band and Ted would be awesome or Hey Cisco?? We’ll see them in St.Louis, cant wait 🙂 it was time to retire Black Night…
August 19th, 2017 at 12:03Sammy, you guys who think Purple should skip their well know songs on major tours are full of crap. Not play SMOKE ON THE WATER – totally ridiculous. MOST reviews of this tour in the US media focus on Alice Cooper and his set list. He’s playing his hits and his set is high energy. I get Purple playing two songs from the new record, they should promote INFINITE, but if they want to treat the American fans they should include Women from Tokyo and Knocking on your Backdoor. Few people in the audience know Fireball and even fewer ever hear UNCOMMON MAN. Drop most of the keyboard solo too.
For an AMERICAN split audience with a time constraint I’d go Highway Star, Blacknight, Women from Tokyo, Strange Kind of Women, Suprising, Knocking at Your Backdoor, Lazy, Perfect Strangers, Space Trucking, Smoke – encore – Bedlam and Hush. Outside of the dozen or so Purple cork sniffers in the crowd who want to hear obscure tunes, the other 8000 people in the crowd will be mostly pleased.
I’m seeing them WED at a venue in Virginia I saw BOSTON and JOAN JETT play 3 weeks ago. Joan Jett played for an hour, played all her well known songs and everyone was happy. Boston cam on a played one self indulgent guitar solo after another where they all began to sound the same. Halfway through the set the audience began to thin out and once More than a Feeling was played 3/4 of way through it was game, set, match!
August 19th, 2017 at 17:37Thought Edgar Winters spent too much time playing his voice against the guitar licks. He could have squeezed in a couple more songs – but his voice is tremendous. Alice Cooper was exceptional as always. Deep Purple was disappointing from my reserved seats. Sound was muddled and it seemed to me that Ian Gillan might have been ill. He left the stage 2 or 3 times. He missed the start of the vocals on Lazy – the band played an extra verse until Ian came back on stage, and a couple of times when he came back on stage he went over to Steve Morse, Roger Glover and Ian Paice to talk with them during and between songs. He couldn’t hit a couple of high notes and he looked pale. I know that he is 72 and that has something to do with it, but I think he wasn’t quite himself. Show was still good but not as good as I’ve seen them in the past. Years are catching up to us all. No complaints about the show, though. Just glad to see them one last time.
August 23rd, 2017 at 20:21@ Ron – You nailed it. Don’t play the songs people know and watch the crowd slip away!! I saw Supertramp a few years back and they decided it was a good idea to play the most obscure songs they had. Even diehards up front were guessing the name of the tunes!! The women in the audience were bored until the second half of the show when they played songs they knew. Many went to the beer tents until they heard something they knew! The front was half empty.
August 24th, 2017 at 15:44DP setlist is fine. Sure they can add this or take that lesser hit away, but that is not the issue. They just don’t have a solid fan base in North America. Go to Europe and you can see them headlining a stadium!
And the exact opposite would happen – Fans would leave halfway through AC’s show as he is not big in Europe or Japan! It is all a matter of market….
@ Michele – Don’t blame the band for issues with the PA system. They had no clue what it sounded like out there. Past the sound board it is at your own risk for sound! LOL!