York PA 12/7/96

     The York show was the forth show of the US tour for me. The played at Memorial Hall which was part of the York Fairgrounds. The place holds about 3,000, but it was hard to judge how many people were there as we were right up front. The show was general admission which was good as it kept the crowed standing!

     Wild T & The Spirit opened the show at 7:30. Because of the early start Purple came on a little bit earlier as well. Despite this, they still left out Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming.

     It was an excellent show, everyone seemed happy and into it 100%. The stage was actually carpeted for this show and Roger played bare foot, a brave move considering how Ian's been falling over things lately! Another interesting thing about this show was that York doesn't seem to get many shows, so as a result it seemed like there were a lot of locals there just to see what had pulled into town!

     Thanks to Colin Hart we had backstage passes. Steve Morse came out straight away to chat with everyone. I asked him if there were plans for the Steve Morse Band to come to the northeast. He said they would, though there were no plans at the moment. He said after his shows later this month he would be back in the studio with Purple and doing Purple shows in South America and some festivals in Canada next year. Roger came out to sign autographs as well.

     After this, most of us made our way to the hotel bar at the bands hotel. Ian Paice and Ian Gillan were there, and Steve Morse came down later in the evening. We had the best time chatting with them and just hanging out with everyone. My lifelong dream of drinking with Big Ian finally came true! :-) After taking pictures with them, all of the computer people got together to pose for a picture. When Gillan saw what was going on, he asked to be included. It was great! It was an evening I will never forget.

Brendan Johnston

[ reviews home ]