![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/mcbride7.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/airey.jpg)
Deep Purple in concert – Grenoble – France
Deep Purple – Palais de sports, Grenoble (France – November 9th 2012)
Set list : Fireball – Into the Fire – Hard Lovin’ Man – Maybe I’m a Leo – Strange Kind of Woman – The Battle Rages On – Contact Lost – Steve Morse solo – Sometimes I feel like screaming – The Well-Dressed Guitar – The Mule (+ Ian Paice solo) – Lazy – No One Came – Don Airey solo – Perfect Strangers – Space Truckin’ – Smoke on the Water.
Encore : Hush – Black night.
A few impressions about the concert I saw yesterday night:
First of all: Ian Gillan is singing really well. He voice was good during the whole concert and (good news!) he didn’t try to catch all the high notes that sometimes are hard for him. It was nice to see him relax, happy with this incredible voice that we all love. When he is singing like that, everything works on stage and the rest of the band seemed confident, and played with passion and power.
An obvious fact: Ian Paice is on top form! I saw Purple maybe twenty times and I was really impressed by his playing in Grenoble. He is always pushing hard, but with such fineness. He always has something new to play during the old songs, things that you never heard from him, and it’s just amazing to watch him play.
The first three numbers (Fireball – Into the fire – Hard Lovin’ man) for the beginning of the concert were terrific, with an incredible energy: it works really well and Purple shows how a powerful hard rock band it is still!
I noticed a lot of highlights: “The battle rages on” because Don solo was incredibly good. “Sometimes I feel like screaming”, very stirring because of Ian Gillan performance, “Lazy” for the superb instrumental passages between Morse and Airey, “Perfect strangers” played with perfect vocals and a marvellous Arabian solo from Airey.
It was nice to hear “No one came” too. It’s a real fine rock number, one of my favourite, and Airey & Morse were brilliant.
The big surprise was “The Mule”. I never heard it live before. An incredible performance: it was so perfect, I thought I was listening the Made in Japan album! Ian Paice’s solo was excellent, and much longer than his solos of the 2010 tour.
As always in France, during his long solo, before “Perfect Strangers” Don played several notes of “La Marseillaise” our national hymn, and he was really well welcomed.
For the encores (“Hush” and “Black night”), the instrumental passages between Morse and Airey were really good and long.
At the end of the show, Roger Glover and Steve Morse stayed a long time on stage to thank us.
The set list for me was good; nevertheless, another “Purpendicular track” (my favourite record of the Morse era) would have been great to hear.
To sum up the evening: a stunning performance of the band!
Lionel Bouvet – Annecy (France)
bouvetlionel@hotmail.com
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Nice review! Thank you very much!
November 11th, 2012 at 08:20Fan filmed videos available here: http://heavyrocktheplaylist.blogspot.no/2012/11/deep-purple-grenoble-november-9-footage.html
November 11th, 2012 at 09:49Thanks for the great review. They just never let the quality slip at all.
November 11th, 2012 at 12:21Good to see the ‘mule & into the fire’ on the list, overall a nice review thanks!.
November 11th, 2012 at 12:45Great review, merci bien! So it seems that Wasted Sunsets, that was played during several of the recent Russian shows, has been replaced by Sometimes I feel like screamin’. I totally love that last song, so I’m very happy about that. But Highway Star dropped, sad about that…
I love the Purpendicular album very much too, and I would have loved to have some more Morse era stuff in the set, but you just can’t have it all, and in any case it’s great that the band are in such great form, and relaxed and happy. I will see and hear for myself next Friday in Germany!
November 11th, 2012 at 13:55No more ” Wasted Sunsets”? Too bad. Love that SIFLS is back in the set and I hope they are morphing the end of “Fireball” right into “Into The Fire”. I wish they could/would do a show w/ more Morse era stuff for the real diehard fans. There is at least 2 concerts worth of great songs from this period and remember, I’ve been a fan since 1968 when I first bought “HUSH” on a 45 rpm single.
November 11th, 2012 at 14:48It would probably kill them though doing Smoke,Hush,Tokyo,Strange,Black Night & Perfect Strangers and then about 10 – 15 Morse era songs.
Nice to hear that Gillan didnt try to hit all the high notes. If you wanna hear the perfect Gillan screams, listen to Made in Japan. But I still would like to hear a couple of numbers from Who do we think we are, its not that bad album….
November 11th, 2012 at 19:32Hate to be a downer but if I went to this concert and Highway Star was not played I would be extremely pissed. Drop any song you want but Highway Star has to be played. How can the greatest song ever not be on the setlist? I hope this is just a one time thing.
November 11th, 2012 at 21:41@2 nice videos but it doesn’t look like it was a ‘fullhouse’ hope I’m wrong…………….
November 12th, 2012 at 02:04I agree with George, you cant drop Highway Star
November 12th, 2012 at 07:05Has anyone ever thought that a reason Highway Star isn’t performed in this set list, may be because of the vocal side of it? It is a strong song vocally & Gillan has performed it more than enough over his time in Purple. How long can a human being push themselves to the limit & beyond? It may not be the reason, but it could be! Old Father Time again me thinks, & that is life! No big deal! There are plenty of other songs!
November 12th, 2012 at 11:29Agreed George (#8)
November 13th, 2012 at 12:58@ 2 thanks.
Looks like audience sizes in Europe are approach what we see in the USA for Purple…2-4000. Not a good trend.
November 14th, 2012 at 11:53#11…if Ian Gillan does not scream and fill in over the guitar and organ solo and just sing the lyrics he is fine with any purple tune with the exception of child in time of course. The only problem is when Ian quacks like a chicken while Morse is shredding. Its like that on all the songs. Ian can still sing the tunes great he just needs to follow the concept that “less is more”. That is sing only the lyrics…the silver throated screaming days are over. No one did it better Ian so no slight intended.
November 14th, 2012 at 11:57Irony.
The filmer is appearantly a female singer in a NIRVANA tribute band.
One of the lows in Rock and Roll.(Partly inspired by Blackmore’s judgment of AC/DC around 1975 : )
Btw, I clicked and saw…….
SMOKE ON THE WATER!!!!!
I m sure may will think : Jeeezzz, infantile DP and her fans…..
November 14th, 2012 at 12:21Dont they have anything else?!
@11
November 14th, 2012 at 16:16I’m not asking Ian to sing Child In Time. There are difficult vocal parts ( screaming ) in Space Truckin and Into The Fire and there playing those songs. I’m just saying Highway Star at least in my opinion is the best Deep Purple song ever. I would rather have a shorter set list if the vocals are a problem then leave this song out. Just saying to me Highway Star is Deep Purple.
Just put ‘Highway star’ at the beginning and Gillan would sing it well…than take out all those same old songs like ‘SOTW’ ‘Hush’ and ‘Black Night’…Everyone is tired of the same set list but with one exception: Highway Star…
November 15th, 2012 at 12:39In other places people complain there are too many old songs and not enough new ones. Now they drop one of the “must play” songs and people start complaining. They’re damned if they do, and damned if they don’t…
November 15th, 2012 at 18:17Um,the best DP song ever is “Burn”.
November 15th, 2012 at 18:42The best DP song ever is always still a personal taste matter.
Mine is Child in Time because that song started my love for this band back in 1997.
About the fact that they drop old songs to put in new songs, i say let them do that, i can servive a show with out Highway Star or Black Night, or Hush, i never witnessed a show with my favorite song live either and i’m perfectly okay with that.
They played these songs to long now they even stop bothering to improvise, i mean when was the last time the organ solo in Highway Star was played different then the one that appears on the album, and the same goes for the guitar solo’s very much repetitive if you ask me.
And this isn’t only the problem with Highway Star, Fireball, Pictures of Home and many more they just don’t bother anymore.
It’s about time they make some fresh changes if you ask me, before they really slide into a bermuda triangle of the same old boring repetitive stuff over and over again.
But that’s just my opinion on the whole situation if you ask me.
Chears!!!!,
November 15th, 2012 at 22:07Thunderhawk.
@18
November 16th, 2012 at 00:47All I’m asking for is one song, they can play whatever else they want.
@19
Everyone is entitled to there opinion. I would be willing to bet if you asked 100 Deep Purple fans which song is better Highway Star or Burn, Highway Star would win by a landslide. But don’t get me wrong, Burn is great!
George Martin @11:
Though I agree Highway Star is an obvious Purple ‘must have’ songs in their set (not for me personally, but for the masses)….but to put that much credence and center that much importance as you state where that one song is worth shortening the set and throwing out other songs for is way over the top. That is the thinking that shows just how narrow minded some here are. Basing a concert experience around one song as being what makes the experience valid is I would state like buying a whole album just to hear one song…..
CheerZ
November 16th, 2012 at 03:32I think Highway Star is 1 of the songs that must be done.
Better skip SKOW(Aldo because it s too demnanding and therefor painful to listen to.
I always felt that Highway Star is THE ultimate track.
November 16th, 2012 at 14:24@20: Only one song, that’s what everyone say. Just their favorite song. 😉 I remember when they dropped CiT and everyone was upset about that for a while. Now people rarely ask for CiT. I just think they need to be brave and drop whatever they want. Someone will always be upset but as time goes on, people will forget. Or move on. 🙂
November 16th, 2012 at 20:21@22
November 16th, 2012 at 21:35Narrow minded? Not me! Look every band as a rule has one song that defines that band. I don’t need to give examples you should be smart enough to figure that out on your own. I am not saying they should shorten the set by an half hour or anything like that. I would gladly give up 2 songs to include Highway Star. Like @23 says Highway Star is the ultimate track. You can’t tell me if you saw them and they left it out you would not be disappointed. I would never believe it.
Gillan will NEVER sing MK III songs.
Thats one of his hang ups.
Hell, even Evans did not mind singing someone elses songs : )
November 16th, 2012 at 22:33@ 26:
I often asked myself why he didn’t sing Mark III songs. He sang “Kentucky Woman”, “Hush” and “Mandrake Root” when he joined Deep Purple in 1969. Glenn recorded one hell of a version of “Highway Star”, which to me is the best track on the Machine Head tribute album. Glenn and David sang “Space Truckin'”, “Smoke On The Water” and “Highway Star” in the 70ies. Okay, they weren’t happy doing it then and it sounded awful but they did. Nowadays it’s too late for Ian I guess to change his opinion but nevertheless it would have been interesting – at least in the 80ies and early 90ies. “Burn”, “Mistreated” and “Stormbringer” are really good songs. On the other hand Glenn and David performed them a lot over the years. A while ago it would have been something to hear the real deal (Mark III) but this always was a dream.
November 19th, 2012 at 05:06Hopefully at the “next DP show” I see, they will have Highway Star back in the set, if not I won’t be upset. Lets imagine what could replace it, KYBD, Wrong Man, Silver Tongue, Ted, Almost Human, Bludsucker maybe Call of the Wild or Hey Cisco! I would rather see them drop Black Night or Hush and replace with any of the previous tunes, whatever I just wanna see them 1 more time (and as a member of R n R HOF).
November 20th, 2012 at 00:41