Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 16:06:46 +0200 (MET DST) From: Fedor de Lange <f.delange@mail1.remote.uva.nl> Subject: Deep Purple in Hannover, 12.06.96
Hi all,
Let me please try to tell something about a fantastic evening, in Hannover yesterday. Except for about 3.500 people, the world has missed a great event.
First of all, my big gratitude goes out to Dave Hodgkinson, without whom my evening would have never been so great. Unfortunately Dave himself couldn't make it yesterday. The guy who would drive us insisted at leaving at 14:00, because of the possibility of traffic jams. I'm deeply sorry Dave, we'll try it again in september/october! At the entrance of the 'Music Hall', I discovered my name was on the 'aftershow' list! Big surprise. Hence my first sentences of this paragraph.
The support band was (if I remember correctly) Rough Skills. A German (local?) band, in the line of Pan Ram, but more melodical.
Around 21:15 the boys hit the stage of the Music Hall; a very ugly old factory from the outside, decorated with a big circus-like canvas tent on the inside.
The sound was good. The band was in topshape, despite of five concerts in a row in Italy last week. Paicey and Rog both weared bandanas, which might have influenced their playing; fantastic. Gillan was in a good mood, usual jokes.
Ted the Mechanic was introduced by him as 'Alice the Mermaid', and 'Pictures of Home' was about '...the contents of Roger's pocket'. Jon Lord was super, and his solo was quite different from what I heard in Rotterdam and in Essen. My knowledge of classical music is terrible, so forgive me not to give the classical sources for Jon's solo. (If there where any at all) ;-)
And of course Steve. Steve was hot. Was he good! I had the feeling he did more solos than ever, and the smile on his face is now officially declared 'permanent smile nr. one' by me. This man is not just a guitarplayer. If you listen to him, and when possible watch him simultaneously, you'll quickly discover the passion he has for his instrument. The screaming line of 'Sometimes I feel...' and the ultrafast solo-duelling with Jon during Black Night and Speed King, his new interpretation of the biggest hardrock riff ever, (listen how he plays the opening of 'Smoke..', this is guts!), and the fabulous version of 'Cascades...', therefore later the highlight of the show for Roger Glover, as he told me.
I think the great thing of not changing the setlist too much every night, is that everybody can dream the songs they play, and do it so well, that you simply can't grasp where all this energy and enthousiasm comes from. A great live song, especially with those stroboscopes on the beat, 'No one Came' was skipped yesterday.
The crowd was very enthousiastic. Hands in the air all the time. Only 'Purpendicular Waltz' didn't receive as much clapping as the rest of the songs. 'When a blind man cries' was a killer version. I had a laugh when Gillan almost got to late for the opnening line: Paicey bashed the drum, Gillan takes a rush from the right side of the stage, dives, reaches out for the mike and 'sings', just in time; 'If you're leaving....'!
The last song of the encore was a pleasure too. Steve presses down his whammy bar at the beginning of 'Highway Star', and lets it come up very slowly. He's imitating the sound of a racing car. Fun! In the instrumental part, both Roger and Steve have great fun, when they get together, and perfrom a Status Quo-ish 'take your guitar and bow' thing, standing next to eachother.
Fantastic show. (Length: app. 117 minutes)
Be prepared you Swedes!
Aftershow, I thought of my pass which had the same word on it, so I went 'backstage'. I bumped into Colin Hart, who told me that he wasn't able to get online for a while, but this day he had succeeded in doing so. He was back online, and was happy about that. Roger and Jon had problems getting back online too. It had something to do with the German system not recognizing their signals (technically spoken! ;-)
For the American fans I asked whether the band was gonna tour the States or not. The answer was nothing 100% sure yet. Dates and venues still have to be arranged, but they're working on it.
What *was* a 100% sure, was that the band would come to Europe again in september/october. Countries like France, Spain and Greece etc. Than I had a nice talk with Roger, who was very sympathetic. We talked about some things, including some amdp-ers that he met in London.
Roger was prepared to tell a tiny bit about the upcoming 'Fireball' remastered version. The big surprise was that the album would feature a previously unreleased song, recorded by Deep Purple in 1970! Mjammie! Jon Lord catched a cold, and his voice was quite 'Tom Waits'. Very nice to meet him though. Of course I had the brutality to take some snaps, and have my _|_ booklet signed by the band. (Only Paicey is still missing) ;-) All in all, a memorable evening for me, I'll not forget this.
Cheers,
Fedor
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