![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan3.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/mcbride4.jpg)
Aging with dignity in Copenhagen
This tour’s set list is somewhat more brave than the previous years, although it reflects the bands 41 year career very well.
The band sounded very tight as always and the sound and mixing was very god, at least were I was standing. The also had two rather large projector screens on the sides of the state which showed close up filming of the band. I can imagine that that made a big difference for those in the back of the crowd.
The most positive experience was Ian Gillan’s performing, especially in the first half of the show. His voice sounded great and he sung with an almost perfect pitch.
Of course he became a little bit tired in the end and had some difficulty with the high screams in the third verse of Space truckin´ but over all he kept it together very well and was maybe the hottest spot of the stage that night.
The others also performed well (as usual) although I´ve heard much more inspired playing from Steve Morse over the years. He played at a technically very high level with a very clear tone but his improvising ideas was not as good as you expect them to be.
Don Airey had a great organ sound (although it´s a brand new digital Hammond those days) and he played very well, especially in the duel with Steve Morse in Wring that neck. His solo spot witch was very piano-syth based wasn’t very refreshing though.
The rhythm sections was incredible tight. They played many of the songs slightly slower than previous years witch creates a very laidback groove, rather unusual in the rock business, absolutely wonderful!
Of course I would liked a longer drum-solo, although Paicey gave a solid and joyful performance throughout the show, especially in the swing/shuffle songs like Strange kind of woman & Wring that neck.
To summarize the show the band still delivers a very high standard rock show which probably beats most of the bands of half their age out there. Theres no doubt that the guys aged for every tour. You can hear that, even Steve Morse has some difficulty playing his own solos now days.
But the beauty with Deep Purple is that they age with dignity in the way that they transform the old material and the old idea of this solid improvised heavy-organ rockmusic over the years to fit both their change of physical capacity and grown musicality, not to mention the incredible lyrically work from Gillan the last years.
The show started att approximately 9.15 after a short local warm up act.
The setlist was as follow if I can remember it correctly:
Highway star (1972)
Things I never said (2005)
Wrong Man (2005)
Strange kind of woman (1971)
Rapture of the deep (2005)
Contact Lost (2003)
Steve Morse solo (a short one)
Sometimes I fell like screaming (short version) (1995)
Wring that neck (extended version with a nice guitar-organ duel) (1968)
Fireball (1971)
The battle rages on (1993)
Don Airey solo
Perfect strangers (1984)
Space truckin´ (1972)
Smoke on the water (1972)
– – – – – – – – – –
Hush (with a short very snaredrum oriented drum solo) (1968)
Black night (introduced by a heavy distorted bass solo) (1970)
Göran Ernström, Malmö Sweden 2009-07-14
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
“Don Airey had a great organ sound (although it´s a brand new digital Hammond those days) ”
I had the great chance to meet Don on his last solo tour and as i’m a Hammond addict to we spoke of… Hammond organ 🙂
He loves Hammond and he is not playing with a digital Hammond, but with a vintage one. If i remember correctly it’s A-100 packed in a flight case to be more portable and as amp he uses two Leslie 147 and a hughes and Kettner puretone.
Check out :
http://www.hammondstore.com/client_list.asp#airey
and
click on gear information :
http://www.donairey.com/
cheers and thanks for the review !
July 14th, 2009 at 11:57Max
I am also a Hammond addict. I have a Hammond 8000 and an M3 stuffed in my “guitar bunker”.
Thanks for the links. I can’t get enough of Hammond tech.
July 14th, 2009 at 13:42Speaking of the Hammond and the old “Beast” that Don says is too big and heavy to move around–Is this the same organ that Jon purchased from Christine McVie? Is McVie’s Hammond the same one that had been used since the Classic times?
If it’s no longer used, I hope it’s in a museum somewhere and not in a warehouse!
July 14th, 2009 at 13:46You are lucky out there in Europeland………no Purple till November at Manchester Apollo…….what gets me everytime they tour is their set list..as the Yanks say if the franchise is not broke ….well it does’ nt need fixin…and that is what it is…a franchise. I wish Deep Purple were like say the Greatful Dead with a different set list every night…the back log of songs hold quality that is just un tapped. To finish with smoke! hush! and black night must get boring after 10 yrs. why not try something new ……please ! Rob
July 14th, 2009 at 14:05Agreed. I suppose they have to do Smoke, but can easily shelve all the other classics. After all, there are plenty more to take their place. No reason not to include a few more from the last 4 albums as well
July 15th, 2009 at 11:51Here’s a suggestion for the current set list:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8YVNSXyH6c&feature=related
Listen to what IG can still do with a great hard rock song…If only the new DP stuff were this good:-(
July 15th, 2009 at 14:36The “Old Beast” that Airey said was too big to carry around is indeed the McVie organ. Don borrowed it from Jon in 2001 saying that Jon would get it back he stopped using it, so I guess Jon has it now. This is the organ that Jon has used on pretty much everything he has done live and in the studio since the Burn album. So it is pretty classic to me.
July 16th, 2009 at 06:46Still waiting for that Sergeant Pepper one!!!!
Maybe I missed?
Did I fall asleep?
Oeps, it was Machine Head that was their opus?
IMHO IN ROCK is the one and Live In Japan the live one…..
Nothing to add
July 16th, 2009 at 09:44T (4) Yep the ‘Beast’ is the one you are talking about. Its still used at certain shows, and is very much alive and kicking. They used it in Norway the other night! The ‘new’ hammond is an old A100 which has been ‘Chopped’ to make it easier to tour with. If anyone knows of a digital hammond that can create the same sound, i’d love to hear it! The thing is they just cant!
July 16th, 2009 at 14:24@6
If you think thats a good Gillan vocal then so be it, but I guess he tried. The music is okay but not as rockin to me as it is to you, it’s white noise to me. Besides, I don’t think their latest record features a bad vocal anyway, nor bad music, it was just put together wrong, ie, the culprit was half asleep when he spit shined the demos.
July 17th, 2009 at 01:13No.7 Allan. Just goes to show what guessing does for you! obviously jon doesnt have it as it belongs to the band. As i said before, the organ is still on the road and still used in the studio. (but as said previously, has been replaced on the most part by the chop A100) obviously it hasnt been used by jon on everything he has done (in fact nothing) since he left the band! Where do you guys get this info??!!
July 20th, 2009 at 00:41Mr Ghost…You are a cynic;-) I think the hit ratings and comments from independant listeners say it all. Eternity would please a great deal of DP fans as an opening track from a recent album. The song is obviously very Purple influenced, but fresh! I’m sure you won’t agree with this.
Of course the vocal doesn’t compare to a prime Gillan (what did?) but it’s pretty impressive for a (then) 62 year old…
July 20th, 2009 at 06:51#11: Dave, my info came from an interview with Jon Lord. I managed to track it down. Here is the pertinent parts:
[i]KEYBOARDS: Where do you get your Hammond sound from nowadays?
Lord : Still from a B-3. But it’s not the same one I had at first. It’s a B- 3 Ritchie bought when he founded Rainbow [1975]. I have played on it for the first time on “Perfect Strangers” [1984]. The lower part of the instrument is missing, I have removed them some time ago and replaced them with steel legs, so that I could transport the thing easier, but besides that it is still an original B-3 without special effects with the same old Leslies and the same old amps and speakers. I haven’t changed a thing.
KEYBOARDS: What do you use as master keyboard?
Lord : A XB-2. For two reasons: first, because it is just as good a MIDI- keyboard as any other, since the differences aren’t that big; second, because I would still have a very good Hammond sound if my main organ were to desert me. [Which happened to Don recently -T]. In any case, it is the best “fake” Hammond sound I have heard until now. Of course, it doesn’t come close to the original Hammond…
The Hammond I have at home I don’t take with me on tour anymore, I’m a bit afraid it wouldn’t survive it. I have bought it in 1972 from Christine McVie. The thing has been used for quite some years now, but it still works wonderfully well and I don’t know if this can be said of more recent keyboards in twenty years. Christine later tried to buy the organ back from me, when she had all this success in Fleetwood Mac, but of course I didn’t give it back to her. At the time, when I bought the instrument from her she was broke and needed money urgently. This transaction was in fact a very sad thing. But whoever can put his hands on an original Hammond won’t let go of it ever again, if he’s in his right mind. (laughs)[/i]
from picturedwithin.com
July 21st, 2009 at 01:51No.11 Dave. I got my information from the interview T(13) quoted above, and from this interview with Don: http://www.egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6459
and from this one: http://www.classicrockrevisited.com/interviewdonairey09.htm
I am sorry that I did not quote them for you in my first post.
July 23rd, 2009 at 07:46Obviously he has not used it on anything since he left Purple. What I meant was once he got the Hammond in 1973 he used it on pretty much everything he did up until he left in 2002. He did not use it on the Perfect Strangers album and on the Battle Rages On tour and album, and he tried to retire it on more than one occasion, but he always came back to it.