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

Rock'n'roll lessons

It was an excellent night. I am 23 years old and have always been a fan of hard rock as well as its roots. That night would turn out to be a hell of an education for me.

It started off with some band I never heard of open the show but they had a mostly acoustic sound. Sort of like Days of the New. They played maybe 25 mins tops.

Lesson #1Ted Nugent

He just appeared out of nowhere. There were stage lights but it was still daylight so no justice was done. God was he loud. Opening with "Paralyzed" and closing with "The Great White Buffalo", he played a good 40 min set ripping through the classics and did most of his big mouth yapping actually during the songs since he didn't have much time. But for what it was worth, I salute ya Uncle Ted. Good job sir.

Lesson #2 Deep Purple

They hit the stage just as the skies were getting dark blue. I really like the backdrop they had. It was a weird looking sun design that glowed astonishingly with the different color changes of the stage lights. A very colorful show indeed. But to the music.

Ian is one hell of a singer. Very professional. Seems to be a very hard worker. Being an avid concert-goer, I really respect musicians that put that little something extra, night in and night out, just to make sure they sound good, regardless of what night they are playing. Ian definitely displays this kind of work ethic. Truthfully, Morse's guitar did kind of drown out some of Ian's singing at times but it wasn't too noticeable. Excellent keyboard work. Well, I could go on to compliment the drummer and the bassist, but I'll just say the whole band did a great job. For them it was probably "just another day at the office" but I tell ya, they are office professionals.

Despite enjoying the legends playing their classic hits, I really liked the intro to the song called "Fools". The harmony was very eerie. The band pretty much conformed to the 75 minute setlist that has been mentioned in this website. But after browsing this site even further, it seems that their regular headlining gigs run twice as long. I sure hope these boys come back through the States soon so I can have a Deep Purple experience in its entirety.

Lesson #3 Lynyrd Skynyrd

What can I say, I was blown away for a third time in a row. Good ol boys collectively going by the name of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Their gig lasted a good hour and a half and even that amount of time wasn't enough to play a "best of" catalogue as they had to, at one point, mesh a cluster of hits into a medley. But the bigger ones were played in their entirety. I think there probably would have been a riot if the boys did a chopped up rendition of "Free Bird" or threw it into their medley. No sir. It was their encore and it was a good 15 minutes long. Rickey Medlocke dominated most of the legendary jamming at the end of the tune. He was something else.

All and all, it was an excellent night. Excellent line-up, and one hell of an education. I recommend this to any young music fan that would like to get a good dose of how it's REALLY DONE.

Jason Dyer


[ reviews | the highway star ]