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

Review Oslo 4.10.98

Oslo 4/10-98
The 4th of Oct. was the day Deep Purple came back to Norway, and I was there.
I had traveled almost 2 hours with airplane from Tromsø. And was ready for a treat by my favorite band. Still remebering the brilliant concert in Umeå, Sweden in 1996. I was really looking forward to seeing the guys again.

Before the concert I went to a pub called "the Queens pub" and met some fellow Deep Purple fans (hello Trond), and then some of us went to the Deep Purple "vorspiel" at a club called Mars to see Elements, a Deep Purple tribute band.

We left for the Spektrum around 20.30, the support band EgoDog had started and they were rather good. Deep Purple went on stage at about 21.00 and the show ended around 22.30, I think.

Gillan was in fine shape, his voice was fresh and good. He was walking around the stage a lot. Gillan was sometimes a bit low in the mix, but generally good. Glover was as always very good, his bass solo was very good, and he held a firm bass line going. Little Ian was wery good, he played better than I have ever heard him. His drum solo was excellent, but he lost his drum stick during "Pictures of home" ;-) Steve was playing good, I really love this guy, he has an exellent technique. But he sometimes missed, i.e. the intro of Lazy. I loved his solo. Lordy was not himself, he played good, but I felt it was something missing. The energy he showed me in Umeå was not there, is he a bit tired?? But he is still the king of the keyboards for me!

The setlist was the same as in Finland if my memory servs me right. The songs they picked out for this concert was a bit odd. I miss tunes like Hush, Maybe I'm a Leo, Fireball, When a blind... and a few others. The highligths of the show were: Speed King (amazing), Any Fule (a real rocker), Bludsucker, 7th Heaven, Highway Star. The rest was good but did not make me go crazy.

All in all it was not the best concert I've been at with Deep Purple, but still they are still a lot better than most of the bands today on a bad day. ROCK ON!!!!

Tore Grøtte


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