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Still smoking
BraveWords has a review of the Deep Purple gig in Montreal on August 17, 2026:
Monday night on August 17, Place Bell in Laval hosted a triple bill of classic-rock royalty as Deep Purple brought their Splat! tour to town behind their new album of the same name: their 24th studio record and one they’ve been road-testing all summer across North America.
The crowd was a study in generational overlap: silver-haired lifers who’d have caught the band the first time around standing next to twenty-somethings in 70s inspired clothing, dressed for a decade they were born 40 years late to see.
Continue reading in BraveWords.
Photo credit: Thomas Mazerolles
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Well, I think that reviews in most media outlets dealing with music are mostly done by young people. Logically. When preparing reports, they know what their parents told them or what they read on Wikipedia. And I believe that when they get a request from an editor to review such an “old” band, they seek help from older colleagues, if such exist anymore. And when they come to a concert to do their job, they are probably half-lost. The only thing that makes me happy is that so far I have not read a single negative comment from the relevant media about the new album or concerts on tour.
August 24th, 2026 at 09:36Good day everyone
I was at that show and while the BraveWords review was short, it hit the nail on the (machine) head. I enjoyed Starship and the songs they played and their set was tight and short . But I couldn’t imagine that band playing any longer sets. Kansas left me questioning what they were as a band. Not having heard anything other than Dust in the Wind and Carry on Wayward Son, the rest of their set I found to be cumbersome and crowded by too many people playing too many instruments at the same time. But when The Boys walked on stage all that vanished. Their sound was clean crisp and ramped up. Big Ian was bang on for an 80 year old, Roger steady as ever, Little Ian made drumming seem effortless especially after watching the drummer for Kansas flaying away on his kit. Mr Airey never disappoints. And Simon, Simon fits the band like a glove. The transition from Steve Morse seems ,well seamless. If this is the last time the boys make here, they left on a mighty powerful and entertaining note.
Gary in Montreal
August 24th, 2026 at 12:11