Royal Albert Hall, London, 25/9/99

The prospect of finding myself in front of the Purps for the second time in twelve months was exciting enough, but the first ever reprise of the first official Mk2 output made the evening doubly mouth-watering.

The evening began with the LSO playing Malcolm Arnold's 'Four Scottish Dances' as a tribute to the great man, who unfortunately could not attend the evening. Not one my favourite pieces but it set the rather low-key tone for the early part of the evening. Jon Lord then performed two selections from the excellent 'Pictured Within' accompanied by the Orchestra and featuring Miller Anderson, who looked like Pavarotti with bulemia and latterly Sam Brown. Both vocalist performances were top drawer as was the Lords.

Roger Glovers spot featured two selections from Butterfly Ball and introduced the diminutive Ronnie James Dio on vocals and a band consisting of Ian Paice, and Steve Morse. 'Sitting in a Dream' was a little hesitant to begin with, but Love is all was quite powerful with RJD ad-libbing for all he was worth at the end.

Next up, Mr Gillan (nice jacket) added some Country and R & B to the proceedings with 'Via Miami' from 'Accidently on Purpose' and an old standard 'Thats why God is singing the blues'. To be honest this was in my view the least sucessful part of the show and seemed a little incongruent given the nature of the preceeding material. Nonetheless Gillan's personality carried it off although I still can't count Steve Morris as one of my favourite axemen.

The ever-grinning Steve Morse brought his own band and cranked up the volume with two solo numbers, the first of which 'Night Meets Light', seemed to be an exercise in finding the worlds most difficult chords and trying to string them together in one composition. I'm still not sure about it. The old Dixie Dregs number 'Take it off the Top' was very solid and the evening changed up a gear from then on.

Surprise of the evening was the Ian Paice big Jazz Band featuring a full horn section and Jon Lord on Hammond. Their rendition of 'Wring that neck' or 'Hard road' depending on which side of the pond you live, was fab and a suitable high point on which to close the first half of the show.

Now the bad news. No not the Concerto, the audience, or more specifically the few morons who kept shouting out for more obvious selections from Purple's back catalogue during the quiet sections and ruined the second movement completely for me. Whoever you are (you berks) a thousand curses be upon you! Didnt you read the ticket ? If all you wanted was Highway Star where the hell were you last October? Purple could certainly have used the extra punters at Wembley. Anyway, back to Jon's magnum opus. Updated in parts, particularly Gillans bit, the 90's version was considerably less raw than the original. Steve Morse's work was particularly more integrated than Blackers twang-fest on the MK2 version and overall it was a delight to hear the piece live, as I only 9 when they did the first recorded it.

The final part of the evening featured more favoured Purple work, but I was delighted that less obvious and more recent material was chosen. Ted, Sometimes I Feel, Watching the Sky and Pictures of home all with some orchestral assistance brought the evening to a suitably rapturous close. The thunderous encore of 'Smoke' featured all particpants of the show and RJD even got to sing a verse of the hallowed meisterwork.

Once the band and orchestra left the stage, the applause just kept on going. Ten minutes later Gillan had to come back and say 'honest there is no more'. I can't wait for the CD.

Steve Curtis
England

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