![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan1.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/paice2.jpg)
Top form – Berlin
Top form, keeping the momentum. Two-hour-long show again!
Pictures Of Home / Things I Never Said / Wrong Man / Ted the Mechanic / Living Wreck / Rapture of the Deep / Before Time Began / Mary Long / Contact Lost / Well Dressed Guitar / Lazy / Perfect Strangers / Junkyard Blues / Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye / Space Truckin’ / Highway Star / Smoke On The Water / Hush / Black Night.
The band in an excellent condition, seems to be happy with being on tour again and with their first show in Germany this year.
The first part of the show until Mary Long was a real joy as these are new tracks, especially if you remember the ‘best of…’ package played and over-used sometimes in the last few years.
Fast and powerful opening (Pictures of Home) with clear sound and it’s gonna last till the end of the show.
Things I Never Said played live sounds much, much better than downloaded from the web. Wrong Man also very strong. (a good pair for an American single ? – they’ll probably like it on that market).
Absolutely wonderful Living Wreck, Rapture and Before Time Began. There was no problem with lyrics, however it was time to use the textbook during Mary Long (IG missed only the second verse).
Contact Lost should be dropped out immediately and be exchanged for another new song or at least obscure oldie. We all are fed up with this, I guess. Well Dressed Guitar would be replaced as well.
Next ones (Lazy, Perfect Strangers with short solo and without Star Wars – thanks Don!, Junkyard Blues), played well. After Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, Gillan said: “We’re gonna leave this rock’n’roll highway” and go to Space Truckin’. But the real speed they reach in Highway Star which has a longer than before intro and reminds us of the seventies and time they played tracks with long improvisations…
Then the killing riff of Smoke… (black and white bass!), typical encore of Hush and Black Night and again we feel there would be more new songs in the setlist, etc., but generally: we’re glad to see the band on the new tour, with the new album and feel this Rapture of the Deep (whatever it means to anyone).
Dominik Bednarski
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing