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

The Setlist remains the Same - Deep Purple live in Karlsruhe

First of all a big "Hi" to the internet people I met before and after the show... 'hope to see you all again soon!

The venue was a small hall in Karlsruhe (about 4000 people), which offered a poor sound and really two (TWO!) small doors to let the crowd in...

Opener were German metal band Rage together with a "chamber version" of the Lingua Mortis Orchestra - which featured only 3 of normally 22 people. They played a good show with only two problems:

  • the orchestra-people were way too low in the mix

  • the setlist - I really don't understand why they only played songs out of their actual CD "XIII" and a cover of Rolling Stones "Paint It Black"


Purple entered the stage at about 21:20 and played for less than two hours. The band was in a fine shape, especially Big I sounded better than on last tour...
A disappointing fact was the setlist: where were the surprises that make a concert exciting? Instead of keeping "Into The Fire" in the setlist (only played once in Germany) and digging out some never-played-live songs, they re-introduced live standards like "Strange Kind Of Woman" and kept songs like "Woman From Tokyo" or "Speed King".

To sum up: it was a bit like a movie featuring some great actors - but with a script you always have the feeling you know what will happen during the next 5 minutes...

Andreas Thul


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