[ d e e p P u r . p l e ) The Highway Star

The Deep Purple gig in the Munich Olympiahalle was great!

The set was quite different than the original Royal Albert Hall concert: "Wait A While" was left out, so Ronnie James Dio added two extra tracks; "Fever Dreams" and "Rainbow In The Dark".

I can't remember the exact set list, but they did a great version of "When A Blind Man Cries" and "Pictures Of Home" had a special intro by the Orchestra, that was different form the Albert Hall.

They also did a different version of "Wring That Neck", and played a new song called "The Nice Dressed Guitar" (which was a nice instrumental played by orchestra and band). "Watching The Sky", "Ted The Mechanic", "Some Times I Feel Like Screaming" were all there.

Ian explained the whole concept of the "Concerto", which was totally new to me. So it was a lot of fun to listen to. After the "Concerto" they played "Smoke On The Water" and two more songs I don't remember.

After standing ovations they encored (without the orchestra) with "Black Night" and "Highway Star". This track list is not complete, as the whole thing lasted for over three hours.

The band was in a superb form, especially Steve was fantastic. I think the whole concert was much better than the Royal Albert Hall gig (at least from what I can tell from the DVD and CD), band and orchestra interacted much more, the orchestra was involved in almsot every Purple song.

On the down side was the bad acoustics in the Olympiahalle, but this is a problem at every concert there. The PA was working at its limits, and had a permanent hiss, that was sometimes annoying in the quieter parts of the "Concerto".

All in all we had a great time, and if you like classic music at least a bit, try to catch one of the remaining shows, it's worth it!

Michael Fuerst


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