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

Very First Concert in 1999 (São Paulo, 19/03/99)

Hello, Purplemaniacs, here you have my review (I believe it's the first of 99!) from the just finished concert at Via Funchal, São Paulo. I hope you enjoy it.

A.Band.on Tour 99 - South America

São Paulo - 19/03/99 (concert finished 1:30 hour ago!)

The very first concert of 1999 happened to be in Brazil, although Brazilian tour was almost cancelled because of recent maxi devaluation of Brazilian currency (in fact, some dates were actually cancelled). But, what really matters is that Purple is again bringing us the best rock of the world, and of course, can't help being there to enjoy it.

HOW DO THEY LOOK LIKE...
The first shock when they came through the lights was seeing Gillan and his quite short hair! I would say...weird! Wearing white jacket, he was really different from what I expected...
Glover and Paice, same pirate look of Purpendicular tour. Lord and Morse, no changes also.

THE SET LIST
TED THE MECHANIC
STRANGE KIND OF WOMAN
BLOODSUCKER
PICTURES OF HOME
ALMOST HUMAN
WOMAN FROM TOKYO
WATCHING THE SKY
FIREBALL (ENDED WITH INTO THE FIRE RIFF)
SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE SCREAMING
ANY FULE KNO THAT
STEVE MORSE SOLO - INC. CASCADES SOLO (WITH LORD, PAICE AND GLOVER)
SMOKE ON THE WATER
LORD SOLO (CHEERS...)
LAZY
PERFECT STRANGERS
AQUARELA DO BRASIL (Excerpt of Brazilian song with Jon on piano, Roger and Paice discretely helping, and Gillan pretending to sing... :-))
SPEED KING (solos of Lord and Steve, then Roger, then Paice, then Elvis Gillan singing "It's Now or Never")

ENCORE
BLACK NIGHT
HIGHWAY STAR

CONCERT DETAILS
It's difficult to write a review about Purple concert without being repetitive about their competence and magic to play rock...
Let's start with Glover, playing with a smile on the face (as always, the guy seem to like the job!). The backing vocals he does along with Morse on "Almost Human" and "Sometimes I Feel..." are not clearly listened - luckily, I believe... But, his surprise was the solo on "Speed King", unusual on previous concerts (here, at last).
Gillan - his best concert ever in Brazil, up to now! Bloodsucker, Speed King, Fireball, voice was superb all along the concert. His surprise was to sing "It's Now or Never", inside "Speed King". He also pretended to sing "Aquarela do Brasil", but actually he didn't! That song, by the way, was already played by Lord on 97, Paice and Glover giving a little hand on it. Lord played on that way that only Jon Lord can play.
Ian Paice and the drums, fantastic, but when they were different? Steve provided some amazing moments before that song, er... "Smoke on" something (do you know it?)... First, Free's "All Night Long" riff... then, Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker" (joined by Glover and Paice, for a brief moment, I believed the guys would play the whole song). Then the most famous Cream's riff, and then, directly to the most famous riff on Rock ("Smoke...")!
Paice's solo (a bit short, unfortunately) happened also inside "Speed King".
What a pity that Abandon hasn't been airplayed here. The songs are great, and most of the people didn't know them. "Watching the Sky" and "Almost Human" are great played live, as well as "Any Fule...". But luckily they played "Sometimes I Feel..", my Purpendicular favorite!!

And at the end, the 2h 15min concert was really great, sound was excellent, and the three-generation public left the hall singing Black Night riff, all together.

Fernando Mattedi


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