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

"Fools" was the highlight

Well this was my second time seeing Deep Purple, I went with my wife, and my buddy Tim and his wife. The first time I saw Deep Purple was in Tinley Park Chicago two years ago, and I would say they were clearly better last night even though the set was about 15 or 20 minutes shorter. The first band to come on stage about 6:30 was a group call Ox-45 and they were Ok as a warmer upper. After they finished Ted Nugent came out and I gotta say played his butt off!!!!! He really sounded good and hearing "Cat Scratch Fever", "Great White Buffalo" and all his hits was a great show... Definitely better than I expected!!! Moreover Marco Mendoza the bassist who I know has played with John Sykes was really very good!!!! Cheers to him!!!

About 8pm Deep Purple hit the stage with "Woman from Tokyo", then "Ted The Mechanic", followed by "No One Came", "Fools" (which was the highlight of the show for me!!!! They really nailed that one!!!) then (not in order) "Hey Cisco", "Smoke on The Water", "Perfect Strangers", "Lazy", "When A Blind Man Cries" (which Ian Gillan dedicated to the memory of Tommy Bolin after seeing someone with T.B. t-shirt) and encored with "Hush" and "Highway Star". There may have been another song but I think that was the show...

Ian Gillan looked great about 20 pounds lighter than when I see them two years ago. Steve Morse is always superb, that dude has notes on his guitar that I can't find on mine. Ha ha ha... Paicy is a human metronome and was dead right on every song, Jon Lord "the birthday boy" had a wonderful intro to "Lazy" and my buddy Tim thought he stole the show. Of course Roger, with his very handsome Vigier bass was super too. In fact, I was closest to Roger Glover and Roger, if you read this I was the guy with the New York Jets #28 jersey on jumping up and down like a madman! I absolutely enjoyed the show and quite a few people I know showed up so it was a lot of fun, for me and the crowd as far as I can see.

Finally to touch on Lynyrd Skynyrd, as I would expect, they played all the classics and couple I wasn't extremely familiar with, their stage was pretty cool too... I gotta say this and I firmly believe this, Ricky Medlocke (formerly with Blackfoot, and I am a big Blackfoot fan so I may be biased) was freaking outstanding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is too bad he didn't sing any lead vocals cos' he was by far the most talented guy in that line-up and they were all good when I say this.

Mike Sokolik


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