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DEEP PURPLE in Ulm, Kloster Wieblingen 28.06.2026
“Can I have 5 beers please …”
It was hot. But thanks to the buildings of the beautiful Kloster Wieblingen and the slowly setting sun most of the audience had a place in the shade. Nevertheless those brave parademics had a lot o do obviously. We could see them rush from one end of the audience to the other end quite often. Deep Purple started spot on 8 o’clock. A pretty nice video (if a little kitschy) that contained AI generated hints of every cover in their history (including Mark III et al) accompanied the bombastic intro tape. A few bars into Highway Star the band had made clear they were here to reallly show’em. Ian Gillan was the surprise of the evening. He sang good for the most part, gave it his heart and soul it seemed, he screamed every now and again – but most of all: he did talk again! Gilllanism is back! He was joking, talking nonsense like he used to back in the day. The last times we had seen him he seemed to take care of his voice, hardly talking at all. This time he was very lively, looked great and even screamed for no particular reason while announcing a song …
You may have heard about the setlist. Arrogant Boy and Diablo went down really well live. So did A liite Bit on the Side and Lazy Sod. Rapture of the Deep was a very welcome deep cut for us but it was the song Ian struggled the most singing. All in all the band was on top form. Simon sounded confident and I liked his playing and solo spot much more than the first time I saw him with the Purps. And I totally get what the band mean … he brought a rock’n’rolll edge back I had missed for such a long time. Fun fact: We noticed more younger folks in the audience than at every other Purple show we have seen (and it’s been a few) in the last 2 decades. Usually they get dragged along by their fathers – not this time. (With the exception of my poor boy of course! But in a bad case of Stockholm syndrome he loves to go see them …and after all he’s not THAT young anymore …) There was a girl in front of us … her jaw literally dropped during the solo section of Hard Lovin’ Man (you know those eerie keyboard sounds), she shook her head in disbelief …and she danced for the rest of the show, smilling, cheering. Fair enough as the band was really groovy. Sometime during the proceedings IG waved to the caterer and shouted “Can I have 5 beers please … and whatever the other boys want…!” At the end of the show, after the last chords of Black Night had echoed from the walls of the monastary he sang “Good Night, Irene” … all by himself. I have never seen him doing somethingf like this before. Oh, and there was a storks family watching the whole show from the roof of the monastary. Seems they enjoyed it. We certainly did.
Max
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Pre gig I had wondered if there’d be showers or water tanks or something — given the heat. Did not see anything like that. All I heard was that a small bottle of water would cost you a 5er … that’s about 30 times the price you pay for it at the groceries … At a Duff Mckagan show in Mannheim he had his staff hand out bottles to the audiences and even the man himself climbed down from stage to provide water … nice touch. But ok … it was a club gig. The band’s not to blame here of course.
June 30th, 2026 at 10:05awesome, thanks for the concert review, it’s raising the Purple fever here THS!
June 30th, 2026 at 13:15Father & Son!
June 30th, 2026 at 14:52Great concert review. Thank you Max.
June 30th, 2026 at 16:50Though the band did well I have to say that I couldn`t enjoy it as the sound was awful. If the bassdrum is the only thing I hear – and feel – it is just annoying and shows maybe hearing problems of the person behind the mixing desk. It was the same thing with the opener – The Howlers – too much bassdrum covering everything-
June 30th, 2026 at 17:06When they played “When a blind man cries”, no softer nuance of drums was heard, just the shirtshattering boom of the bassdrum. I was and am still disappointed.
This is all Fantastic!! 💜💜💜
June 30th, 2026 at 18:55Thank you for the great insight Max!
I’m very happy that you’ve enjoyed the concert!
June 30th, 2026 at 19:32On next october they will playchere at Milano.
These are the prices for the show
June 30th, 2026 at 20:51Vivaticket logo Back to the event DEEP PURPLE – SPLAT! WORLD TOUR 2026 Unipol Forum – ASSAGO (MI) Saturday, October 17, 2026 – 7:45 PM Click here for VIP Package details. For this event, it is mandatory to link each ticket… Log in or Register Premium Reserved Seating (Poltronissima) From €145.75 Reserved Seating (Poltrona) From €105.50 1st Tier Reserved Seating From €117.00 1st Tier Reserved Seating – Aisle Seat From €134.25 1st Tier Reserved Seating – Cat. 1 From €99.75 1st Tier Reserved Seating – Aisle Seat Cat. 1 From €105.50 2nd Tier Reserved Seating From €94.00 2nd Tier Reserved Seating – Aisle Seat From €99.75 3rd Tier Reserved Seating From €82.50 3rd Tier Reserved Seating – Aisle Seat From €88.25 3rd Tier Reserved Seating – Cat. 1 From €76.75 3rd Tier Reserved Seating – Aisle Seat Cat. 1 From €82.50 3rd Tier Reserved Seating – Limited Visibility From €76.75 Deep Purple VIP Meet & Greet Package Sold Out Price details About us Contact Cookies Privacy General Terms & Conditions Accessibility × Price details Ticket Type | Price | Presale Fee | Commission Premium Reserved Seating – Full Price (Max 6) €127.00 | €18.75 | €10.06 Reserved Seating – Full Price (Max 6) €92.00 | €13.50 | €7.25 1st Tier Reserved Seating – Full Price (Max 6) €102.00 €15.00 €8.05 € 1st Section Reserved – Aisle Seat – Full Price (Max 6) €117.00 €17.25 €9.26 € 1st Section Reserved – Cat. 1 – Full Price (Max 6) €87.00 €12.75 €6.84 € 1st Section Reserved – Aisle Seat – Cat. 1 – Full Price (Max 6) €92.00 €13.50 €7.25 € 2nd Section Reserved – Full Price (Max 6) €82.00 €12.00 €6.44 € 2nd Section Reserved – Aisle Seat – Full Price (Max 6) €87.00 €12.75 €6.84 € 3rd Section Reserved – Full Price (Max 6) €72.00 €10.50 €5.64 € 3rd Section Reserved – Aisle Seat – Full Price (Max 6) €77.00 €11.25 €6.04 € 3rd Section Reserved – Cat. 1 – Full Price (Max 6) €67.00 €9.75 €5.23 € 3rd Section Reserved – Aisle Seat – Cat. 1 – Full Price (Max 6) €72.00 €10.50 €5.64 € 3rd Section Reserved – Limited Visibility – Full Price (Max 6) €67.00 €9.75 €5.23 € Deep Purple VIP Meet & Greet Package – VIP Package (Max 6) €361.85 €18.75 €33.55 € Additional Options Price Commission (*) Facility Fee €2.00 €0.00
Deep Purple VIP Meet & Greet Package234,85 €23,49 €
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Well, the last time I went to the concert I payed ONLY 51,75 euro (October 2022)
I will mot be there.
To much expensive for me.
I sad fort this because the next concert could be the last and however, anyway, it’s going to get more and more expensive in the future. I don’t know what you think or what the cost of living is like where you are, but here in Italy nowadays, prices are absurd, and I’m boycotting them. Sadly, ciao AndreA.
😞😞😞😞😭😢
And furthermore , the spots in front of the stage are seated! How sad! It’s not exactly a Tchaikovsky concert… What a nasty surprise!
June 30th, 2026 at 21:05😡
Great show it was… Amazing to hear Reapture of the Deep and I would love to see that spot in the setlist (last time there was Anya) filled with some other deep cut every now and then, so us youngsters get to hear some numbers from a loooong time ago
June 30th, 2026 at 21:14Nice Review!! Thanks!! Concerning the song “Diablo”, could it be a song about Ian G. letting his “Diabloicals” out? LOL (refer to Mandrake Root Space Vol 1 & 2.) 🙂
July 1st, 2026 at 10:52#8 AndreA:
You’re right Andrea, in Italy concert prices have gone crazy thanks to the lobbying of the two largest cartel organizations.
I decided to go see Ian & Co. because I’ve been refusing to see them since the Rapture tour!
July 1st, 2026 at 11:23@ 5 Sorry you could not enjoy the show in Ulm, Olaf – frankly I did not hear any complaints.
I thought the sound was pretty decent and I was more than pleased to have Gillan up in the mix, I could understand every word he sang. Drums, bass, Keys and guitar were all clearly audible and I remember thinking to myself there and then that they had managed to get a very proper sound. Maybe it depends on where you were standing. Even the snippets on YT – recorded with mobile phones sound pretty good.
@ 8 AndreA it’s certainly questionable how ticket prices kinda exploded during the last couple of years. But I have to say that DP tickets here are usually around 100 Euros for quite a while now.
July 1st, 2026 at 11:42AndreaA, have you seen a lot of things get cheaper during your lifetime? I haven’t.
Those prices you mention pretty much mirror Germany – and we tedeschi always say that Italy is bellissima but also molto caro! ☝️😎 -, here even a club gig of a medium-popular band costs 50-60 Euros. And good tickets for bands like the Rolling Stones, the Eagles or Fleetwood Max easily cost you three to four times as much as a DP ticket in the same class, of course you have the added effect then of getting to see Don Henley flawlessly mime to a full scale backing track of Desperado!
July 1st, 2026 at 14:08WHATDAYYAMEAN people remained seated at THE MOTORS gigs with the inimitable Bram Tchaikovsky (at the far-right in the red and white striped muscle shirt, as Beate no doubt will appreciate), AndreA?!!! 😤🤯👿☠️💀
https://youtu.be/a8X1EKyhLHw
The Motors were kinda Status Quo with short hair, no one sat at their gigs unless he was knocked over by accident!
These young people today don’t know anything anymore. (Exits stage, grumbling …)
PS: To boot, The Motors were quite variable too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC5t1zjFn4Q
July 1st, 2026 at 17:34Coburg had a great sound, that’s all I can say.
Even the opening act duo (!) The Howlers – an indie outfit somewhere between Muse, Oasis and White Stripes with drums straight from the John Bonham chamber of aural horrors – sounded good, never mind that 80% of their music was triggered from backing tapes, namely
– the bass lines,
– all percussion tracks,
– the second and third guitars,
– all keyboards and last but not least
– three voices from the four-part-harmony.
And people’s ears are meanwhile so deformed that the majority of the audience didn’t even notice that they were listening to something that a solitary guitarist and a drummer simply could not do without backing tracks. Frustrating – people wanna be fooled.
https://youtu.be/P_NdE0k86rI
July 2nd, 2026 at 01:17@15 Uwe – The Motors were a lot of fun. Did you see them live?
Thought their first LP was a classic, rocking from start to finish, with all four players shouting out call-and-response vocals, and a massive guitar sound. Among the first of Mutt Lange’s “big guitar” productions, not that far removed from his later work with AC/DC. A desert island disc for those who appreciate that kind of thing.
Some of the subsequent poppy keyboard-oriented stuff was pretty good as well. Too bad that though “Airport” was a hit, the band lost momentum when the album from which it came, “Approved by”, failed to sell. Market research showed that punters thought the cover, prominently featuring the band’s faces, was “ugly”. By the time the record was reissued with a new cover, the single’s chart run was over.
IIRC, only Garvey and McMaster were signed to the label, and when Tchaikovsky and Slaughter requested but were refused official member status, they split. Tchaikovsky going on to some success of his own; G & McM making one final Motors record, even more keyboard-heavy, with the drummer and bassist of Man as session players.
Garvey retired from performing after one solo LP in 1982.
McMaster was out of action until 2016, when he suddenly resumed releasing music at the age of 75, after winding up in a seniors’ home for artists. Interesting story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PESkNfhHB_g
Ricky Slaughter sounded good on drums considering how uncomfortable he looked behind the kit, slouching forward on a throne that seemed to be set too high.
July 2nd, 2026 at 01:46@ 14Uwe Hornung
July 2nd, 2026 at 04:48I’ll tell you just one thing: In 1986, for Iron Maiden’s Somewhere On Tour, the ticket/salary ratio was about 1.7%. Today, it’s 10%.
Uwe @14
Is Italy expensive for a German? That’s laughable, considering that salaries in Italy are among the lowest in Europe—well below the European average. Besides, you can’t compare the Rolling Stones with DP… for many reasons.
July 2nd, 2026 at 05:08AndreA, Italy is only the Germans’ second most favorite holiday country (Spain is #1) because Spain is seen as much more affordable. Italy is quality, but it comes at a price. I’ve never eaten badly in Italy anywhere – and if it was some trucker hangout on the autostrada. Now compare that to, say, Denmark …
I’d you don’t love Italy, there is something inherently wrong with you. Nuff said.
PS: I once saw DP in that neighborhood of Rome which Mussolini had built in his fascist mock-classical brutalist style, it was an amphitheater – quite an experience and a great sound!
And the food afterwards was really good too. 🤗
July 2nd, 2026 at 13:05Skippy, you amaze me yet again, you know The Motors! No, I never saw them, I’m not even sure they ever toured Germany. The English music press loved them in 1976/77, but then the switch to 10cc-like pop with Airport was too radical for their original audience which was more in the Dr Feelgood/Status Quo/Eddie & the Hot Rods immediate energy vein.
Didn’t know that about Andy McMaster at all, interesting, danke!
July 2nd, 2026 at 14:07It’s not me who’s wrong; it’s the average Italian who is. You don’t really know the country—at most, you know the cuisine—just as I don’t know Germany, though I do know that you earn at least twice as much as we do.
July 2nd, 2026 at 16:34There is nothing intrinsic about me; there is everyday life.
We could talk about it for many hours…
Of course I don’t know Italy like you do, AndreA, but I have been there regularly since the late 60s when my parents discovered Finale Ligure by accident (we just wanted to stay for the night, we were tired, I think my dad even got lost with our OPEL) and fell in love with it. Since then there is hardly a region in Italy I have not visited or worked in (Italian industrial glassmaker AVIR was at one point a client). Sicily, Sardinia, Apulia, Piedmont, Milan, Rome, Venice, Bolzano (don’t worry, we don’t want it back!), Firenze, Bari, Napoli, Genova, Torino, Toscana, Umbria, I’ve been around … (not to forget Little Italy while I lived in NYC! 🤣). And for some reason, I’ve always taken an interest in Italian history and the post-war political environment – forgive me when I say that Italian politics never really get boring! 😂 Not to forget Italian cinema!
July 2nd, 2026 at 22:1423 Uwe 😂
Anyway Italian politic history is largely a secret book full of atrocious mysteries: a large expanse of shit.
THE NEW ALBUM IS FANTASTIC!!! 💜
July 3rd, 2026 at 09:33@1 Thank you Max for your review, especially reminding me of Gillan singing Goodnight Irene into the mike acappella at the edge of the stage before turning to walk away, which I have never seen before. In the excitement I forgot what he was singing and now I can search for this song, thanks!!
July 5th, 2026 at 21:04I must correct you on one point though: security did hand out water in cups from in front of stage plus they splashed water with a hose in regular intervals plus you were allowed to take a 0,5 l plastic bottle inside to fill up at the toilet facilities with proper tap drinking water.
Cheers and greetings
Thank you Andrea for putting that right, I did not know that.
July 6th, 2026 at 11:23@1
Thank you Max for the review 🙏🏼
Wonderfully and witty written 😊
Happy October is not that far away, now we just have to get this pesky summer over and done with 😄
July 9th, 2026 at 05:21