![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/mcbride2.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/airey2.jpg)
2024-07-18 – Deep Purple – Salem, Baden-Württemberg
| Who | Deep Purple |
| When |
Thursday, July 18, 2024
20:00
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Age restrictions unknown
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| Where |
Salem, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
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| Other Info | Support: Ellis Mano Band (check them out) |
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
I want to see you again in germany!
January 26th, 2024 at 23:47Your faithful scribe took his Harley and his cousin Jutta all the way down south where Germany merges into Switzerland and Austria at the Bodensee/Lake Constance. That is where Salem – thus called because of a former monastery bearing the same name -, a 10.000 population town is located, a scenic place.
– Let’s start with the bad stuff: The gig was somewhat marred for me because of Roger’s bass sound. For much of the gig he played a maple board Vigier that had the most God-awful, obnoxious and over-emphasized nasty droning mids imaginable. Initially, he drowned out the rest of the band with it and it took the mixing desk guy the first three songs to improve the sound somewhat though it never really got good or to the standard Purple normally offers. I should not be writing this, but the bass was too darn friggin’ loud and sounded horrible. Now it is commendable that Purple hire hearing-challenged people for their tours, but do they really have to sit at the mixing desk?! 🤣 It takes real talent to mess up a sound at an open air. When Roger changed to another Vigier (ebony or rosewood board) in the middle of the concert, the nasty middish frequencies disappeared for a while. Roger was likely blissfully unaware of the problems with his bass sound from the PA though he did seem to fiddle more than usual with his controls. I really could have strangled the guy at the mixing desk, everything had sounded fine with the opening act.
– Simon’s testicles in this band have meanwhile reached a gargantuan size that he could hop with them on stage as if they were medicine balls. He was always confident, now he’s outright cocksure and plays SOTW like he wrote it himself yesterday. His energy and inspiration is infectious and elevates and motivates the whole band, especially Little Ian who was really wild and Don (who has structured a new keyboard solo – has he been lurking on this site and taken note of some of the criticism levied at him?). As everyone knows, I’m no great Gary Moore fan, but Simon is Viagra for the band and a real find. Well-chosen, Herr Airey!I hope you got a signing fee, you deserve one for him.
– Big Ian is doing better, but still recuperating. His voice on Highway Star was thin and he avoided all falsetto parts during Space Trucking, sometimes even going for the lower octave. But when he does the newer material, he’s in his age-befitting element and his voice has much more expression.
– Four new songs: A Bit On The Side, Lazy Sod, Portable Door & Bleeding Obvious – no complaints there, all well-executed (and Lazy Sod is even heavier live) though I heard a more casual fan moan after the gig that “they played too much new stuff”.
– The opening act – the Ellis Mano Band – was aptly chosen (Hammond-heavy as they were), imagine early Whitesnake with Joe Lynn Turner doing his best Paul Rodger’s impressions. They are a really good band, recommended!
https://youtu.be/Kt8c_n54IVo
July 21st, 2024 at 02:05thanks for the review!
July 21st, 2024 at 21:434 new songs in the setlist are few for us!
What did they play from the Morse era?
Uncommon Man – nothing else, as expected. Hard Loving man and Into The Fire from In Rock. Four Songs from Machine Head. Anya, Hush & Black Night. Pictures Of Home, When A Blind Man Cries, No Need To Shout and Perfect Strangers have all dropped out of the set.
Four new songs from =1 was more than I expected! Realistically, they can’t do more than five or six max if they don’t want to alienate those people whose only DP album at home is a compilation with the 70ies stuff plus who have heard Perfect Strangers on the radio. And that is a sizeable group – they are not all trainspotting nerds like us! 🤣
July 22nd, 2024 at 18:01perfect strangers outside the set I really didn’t expect it, a shame..
July 22nd, 2024 at 23:29apart that it’s very famous, apart from the fact that it was now the only live testimony of the 80’s,
it’s the only Deep song that I would listen to 24 hours a day, and that I’ll have played at my funeral!
@ 2 – I have looked up that part of the world online, yes indeed it looks very scenic. Shame your gig was marred by poor sound issues. Other than having a concert pulled in front of you, bad sound is the next worst thing to experience at a concert. Hope you can catch them somewhere else Uwe. Cheers.
July 23rd, 2024 at 00:01I feel you, Uwe. Attended a Black Crowes show the other day and it took me days to recover from what I found was the worst sound I had to deal with in the last 30 years plus. Bút LOUD it was. The mixing guy must have been deaf. (BTW I complained about it via their FB account and the boys from the band or theier employee seemed to agree.) Spoiled anotherwise nice show for me and I got really angry about the time and money spent aka wasted.
As for the Purps …glad I went to Winterbach. What a cute site. They played in a tent. Same setlist, same problems with Ians voice on Highway Star. I wonder why he does Hard Lovin’ Man? Those two showed his age much more than the rest of the set. And yes, 4 news songs, more than expected – yet less than I would like to see them play – and nicely executed too. Ian sounds very good on those, they seem to fit him perfectly. We went home really happy.
July 23rd, 2024 at 07:21