Newsgroups: alt.music.deep-purple
Subject: Chicago 11/29 Show
From: Michael Davis 
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 14:35:24 GMT

The concert here in Chicago was fantastic!!! Even my wife, who is not a DP fan, enjoyed the show! We didn't have the best seats in the house, so I brought my binoculars. Most of the crowd there were in their 30's and 40's. This is the only time I've seen DP, so I have no basis for comparison with past concerts, but I would have to say they sounded 10 times better than any of the live shows issued on CD since the reunion. They seem to really enjoy each other! Boy, were they loud!

When the lights went down and the familiar howling from Hush was heard, the crowd went nuts!!! Great version, btw!! This is the only DP song my wife likes, so this got her out of her seat and rockin'!! Thanks, Steve, for getting the rest of the band to add this to the set list. After the show, as we're walking in the rain trying to find the car, she told me it was a great concert! She even said she recognized most of the songs! I guess I've played DP enough around the house that she couldn't help but be familiar with them! :-)

When the outtro to Fireball was being played, which is the riff from 'Into the Fire', the crowd went nuts!!! But I think they were disappointed that they didn't continue with the song.

IG was in top form - only flubbed the lines to one song that I could tell, and that was WFT, but no one who noticed cared! (He lifted his hands as if to say, "Oops!", and just carried on!) The crowd roared through the well-known songs from the early albums such as Hush, SK, SotW, PoH, WFT, PS, and HS. They were on their feet the entire concert except for the beginning of the Aviator. The set list remained unchanged from the Toronto concert - It was kind of fun to be able to tell people around me what was next! ;-)

Speed King - absolutely fantastic!!! IG introduced it as a lullaby, even pretending to rock a baby in his arms! SM and JL - it was a treat to watch them interact on this and several other songs. At one point, they even shook hands and hugged each other - I thought I was at a lovefest!! Their interaction on Cascades was also awesome!

I loved WaBMC!! SM's work on this song by far surpasses the original!! Most people did not seem to recognize this song or No One Came, but they did recognize BN, which I'm sure is on a lot of compilation records. Some of the songs I enjoyed the most were the quieter songs that built up in the end, such as WaBMC, SIFLS, and the Aviator.

It was interesting hearing some of the familiar IG lines such as "I THAAAANK YOU!" and "It's been a long time!" (I hope I don't hear that last one again. ;-) )

One of the low lights was "some stupid with a" laser pen light kept shining it in their faces during the three encores. I was afraid DP wasn't going to do HS - but they're a class act. They ignored the distraction and jumped right into HS - a great closing number, btw. Also, the acoustics in the Horizon were terrible. From where I was at, it was hard to distinguish Roger's bass. I was also disappointed that I could not find any write up in the local newspapers about the show.

The opening band, Marshall Law was pretty good, the singer kept saying, "It's an honor to be playing before Deep Purple!" I bought the DP '95 Yearbook while I was there. It gives a day-to-day description of the making of _|_, and has over 70 photos of the group, including the SIFLSweeping photo of SM that's on the DP home page. Roger's three postings to the homepage are also included. Some interesting notes: ACFoR was called Spooky or Spooky Wooky, RC was called Bo Throbbley after IG, yes IG, started strumming a Bo Diddley sort of rhythm, SIFLS was called Chicken, then Missing You, and SSMG was called Pulse.

I'm really sorry I missed the opportunity to meet up with the amdp-ers before the show - next year, I hope!

Mike :-)

(Man those cats can really swing!!)

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