Wow, what to say? It is quite easy – the best DP concert I have ever seen (it was my 8th since 1985).

The SAP Arena is a fantastic venue and it was completely sold out. 14.000 people were as happy as the band was.

Very effective light show. IG in very funny mood. Paicey superb (short solo in a rearranged “Hush”). Roger was great, especially his intro of “Highway Star”. Don – what a player – it was a joy watching his playing on the video screen.

Steve with a new guitar and much better sound. Less distorted, less compressed, clearer, sharper. And his playing was phenomenal.

Really no low point this night – even the before unknown “Things I never said” was great. Two hours of pure power.

Pictures of Home
Things I Never Said
Wrong Man
Eduardo the Mechanic
Living Wreck
Rapture of the Deep
Before Time Began
Mary Long
Contact Lost
Well Dressed Guitar
Lazy
Perfect Strangers
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
Space Truckin’
Highway Star
Smoke on the Water
Hush
Black Night

I hope and prey for a live DVD of this tour.

Joachim Petrow

Jon Lord takes “his Musical Friends” along and does a charity show in Zermatt.

Here are the details from the promoter’s website.

Matterhorn Musical Madhouse Charity Circus & Concert
One Show Only!
22 March 2006
Jon Lord & his Musical Friends

The fun begins at 19:00
Clasic Concert – 20:30
Jam Session – 22:30
After midnight – Pete’s Scenit Group
Fun, Music, & Dancing all night long…

In the Triftbach Halle
Zermatt, Switzerland

Tickets available at MOOD’S Restaurant & Piano Bar
and the Matterhorn Circus Wagon (you’ll know it when you see it!)

All proceeds go to the Grand Largue Association Charity
For further information telephone +41 79 220 2000

Click here to download the “Matterhorn Musical Madhouse Charity Circus & Concert” poster (1.2MB pdf file)

At the show in Trier in Germany on February 14, the guitarist from Alice Cooper’s band joined Deep Purple for “Smoke on the Water”.

Ian Gillan’s concert from Edinburgh 1980 with his band “Gillan” will be released on DVD March 13. You can preorder the DVD in our shop.

There are two interviews with Deep Purple (Roger Glover and Don Airey) in the Polish magazine "Teraz Rock" (February issue).
Thanks to Joasia Ostrowiecka for the information.

After half an hour break for rebuilding (it took quite a long time to take away the coffin, the corpse parts and the guillotine), which put he atmosphere down to zero again, it finally started. There were two big video screens at the sides of the stage, but only one worked, luckily the one at my side. So I could see our guys step out of a tour box and walk onto stage. Nice trick!

Setlist:
Pictures of Home
Things I Never Said
Wrong Man
Ted the Mechanic
Living Wreck
Rapture of the Deep
Before Time Began
Mary Long
Well Dressed Guitar /Steve Morse Solo
Lazy
Don Airey Solo
Perfect Strangers
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
Space Trucking
Highway Star
Smoke on the Water

Encores:
Speed King / r’n’r medley
short solo Roger Glover
Black Night

Somewhere there was a drums solo, but I forgot where. In the other setlists there was Junkyard Blues, but I can’t remember having heard that.

Finish was at appr. 23:15, so about 1 3/4 hours playing time.

The songs in detail:
The first notes of Pictures… were awful, something was totally wrong with the organ sound. The music was extremely bass heavy, also the guitar sounded strange. But after a short while the sound technicians got it right and then the sound was excellent. Sometime Steve and his technician fiddled at his amplifier also. POH is one of my favourites, but as an opener I prefer Ted or Highway Star.

Things I Never Said of course nobody knew (except the hardcore fans of course), according the atmosphere was very cautious. I found that not the best of a live song.

Wrong Man took off well, the hard riff obviously was the taste of the masses. Great live song for headbanging. I’d like to hear that more often in the future. Ted finally had a bit of recognition effect.

Living Wreck let the atmosphere cool down again, as it seems to be more unknown. Nice change, it came to my mind this could have been taken into the setlist as an allusion to Alice (sorry, Mr Cooper)?

ROTD got across very well, the promotion and TV appearances paid off. This song, together with Wrong Man might be heard more often. Before Time Began had an extremely weak beginning, especially Ian’s singing was rather lean. The second, harder part was very good again.

Nothing to say about Mary Long.

Steve’s Solo with elements of Well Dressed Guitar at the beginning and at the end was great. Afterwards he said, he would have played much longer, “…but the boys cut my solo down”.

Lazy was brilliant, great interplay of Don and Steve. Don’s solo was the regular, with classics and Star Wars and local colour. During Perfect Strangers the hall boiled for the first time. But it cooled down noticeably during Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye.

The classics Space Truckin’, Highway Star and SOTW were thrillers of course. On the video screens they showed pictures of water and fire during SOTW, but no smoke visible.

Short break, then it went on with Speed King, built in a medley of old Rock’n’Roll songs like Mary Lou. A (much too short) bass solo lead to Black Night, a breaker as usual.

Final conclusion: sold out hall (what was not at all the case with Bananas), thanks to extensive promotion on all stations (I have heard spots with IG, Don, Paicey and Roger).

Sound perfect (after initial difficulties), atmosphere indifferent, but all together very good. Maybe the impression was deceiving. As I was sitting for the first time, surrounded by elder gentlemen, for whom tapping with the foot was an extreme emotional outburst, I am normally used to something different, but the first row, where I can be found usually, maybe is not representative as well.

I found it a pity, that not a single song from Bananas was played, Haunted or House of Pain would have been nice, if only as a reminder that there is another album that most don’t have at home. A little bit of promotion in own case can’t be wrong.

By the way, from the gates of the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle were opened, it took a long time before I could pick up my tickets at the box office. The local management had no intention to considering the guest list and brought our tickets only after the hall was completely sold out(!), so I didn’t enter the hall till the end of the opening act MadMax.

Alice Cooper was musically quite ok, he played from 19:45 (with 15 minutes delay) until 21:00 h. The atmosphere was quite cautious at the beginning, only during the encores did the audience really get off. His show is a matter of taste, I personally don’t like this kind of glorification of violence.

Helge Mayschak

Deep Purple came and brought the magic on this cold winter Tuesday in Paris.

Just before 9 pm, the lights turned out, and on the big screens, we can see the five guys coming out of a big case and going on stage getting the enthusiasm of the audience.

The classical ‘Pictures of Home’ opens the show, with a great Ian Paice at his best. The audience is quiet and the band, like the spectators, is getting warmer slowly. Then come ‘Makes me Wonder’ and ‘Wrong Man’ of the last CD.

‘Ted the Mechanic’, with its particular riffs, brings some speed to the show, but ‘Living Wreck’ from Deep Purple In Rock, even if it’s pleasant for the oldest, is a little too hard and hermetic to bring a total enthusiasm. These first songs are not at the top, but the audience welcomes them and waits for better moments.

Purple offers us three songs of the new cd Rapture of the Deep: ‘Rapture of the Deep’ where Steve Morse shows how gifted he is, then the classical ‘Back to Back’ which fits perfectly to the stage, and the superb ‘Before Time Began’ which is wonderful on the CD but seems not so good when it’s played live.

Then Steve Morse begins his long and technically perfect solo where we can listen to ‘Contact Lost’ and that ends in a wonderful ‘Well Dressed Guitar’ that brings the audience in a perfect state of euphoria.

Now the spectators are hooked and the five musqueteers won’t leave them, especially with a great and powerful ‘Lazy’, just before Don Airey technically brilliant solo. Last time we got ‘Star Wars’, today it is Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune’ that ends on the French anthem ‘La Marseillaise’, getting the audience happier and happier.

‘Perfect Strangers’ begins the last part of the show and, even if it is well played, we can prefer, on this particular song, the way Ritchie Blackmore and Jon Lord used to play it, in a stronger and more efficient way than Steve Morse and Don Airey. However, these two great musicians are back with superb duets on the last album ‘Junkyard Blues’: this song is really perfect live and shows how gifted are these musicians and how happy to play together they seem. Happy is the band, so happy are the spectators that welcome the new ‘Kiss Tomorrow Godbye’ of the last CD.

Magical trio at the end, in front of a totally hysteric audience, with ‘Space Truckin’’ that Roger Glover introduce to us, then ‘Highway Star’ with a particular intro of Roger Glover and Steve Morse, and at the end, last but not least, the famous ‘Smoke on the Water’ in a powerful way.

Classical encore where we can enjoy Ian Gillan voice on ‘Speed King’, where we can listen to Ray Charles’ ‘I Got a Woman’. Then Roger Glover brings us to the classical ‘Black Night’ where all the Paris Zenith audience sings and shouts.

It’s over, the five guys seem to be happy and to have enjoyed the show, so did the spectators, and our friends leave us under many cheers. On the screen we can watch the musicians going back in the big case that a roadie takes away.

We got a classical, sometimes innovative but wonderful Deep Purple show. The technical capacities and gifts of the musicians gave us a great two-hour show that we did enjoy and that we hope to see again, at the Paris Zenith or anywhere else !

David André

Last week we went to Brussel to see Deep Purple, for me for the 17th time Deep Purple in 15 years! We went with 13 people and it turned out to be great.

At eleven a.m. we arrived at the Vorst National in Brussel. Because our day was not yet filled until the concert started, we went to a nearby pub. There we sold our Deep Purple CD’s to the owner of the pub to have their music all day long. That was great.

As time went by, more and more Deep Purple fans came in to the pub and we all had a great time there.

At seven p.m. we finally went to the concert and tried to get as close to the stage as we could. At eight p.m. the support band started to play, but we had no idea who that was.

Then finally, nine p.m.: showtime! Deep Purple came on stage and it was just like I expected. It was great! In the beginning, the sound was not good, but later on it was fixed.

Ian Gillan had a very good voice during the whole concert, and Steve Morse, what can I say, he was great. Roger Glover and Ian Paice were also great, as usual. Don who played the keyboard was also in very good shape.

Highlights of the concert were Picture’s Of Home, Living Wreck, Rapture of the Deep and Speed King. But all their other songs were also great.

It was one of the best concerts I have seen from them in 15 years and I sure was glad to be there. All 13 of us had al real good time and decided to go again the next time.

At midnight we went home, back to Holland, tired, but satisfied. Deep Purple, till next time!

Greetings,

Peter Meijers

I felt it like being home listening to my favourite musik, and I think that the band felt at home too. Gillan’s remarks about visiting old friends and so on, seems very nice combined with the fact that Deep Purple has their roots here in Denmark back in the late 60’s and it feels good.

Everybody in the band was truly HERE! It seeems like being “old” in a band like Deep Purple is a very nice thing, in fact it should be, because these musicians are playing with a touch that is very rare! Hard rock with love and compasion, and humor, from the
bottom of the culture, even Steve Morse, ‘young man’ is very dedicated to the way of playing that “old music”.

I felt like going back to the roots and at the same time seeing a new gladness! What a gift to be able to play like hell, with love to the world!

Thank You For Being Here!

Best regards to everybody
Torben Petersen

Nice show.

It started with Alice Cooper. I saw them live for the first time. I liked their songs though these antics with a coffin and a guillotine were too macabre. But other acts, as throwing pearl necklaces, false dollars or big balloons, were awesome. Intriguing band!

Deep Purple were cool as usual. Mr Gillan’s condition was great though his voice sounded a bit creaky because of bad acoustics of the venue. But he must have been well prepared because he made three mistakes only. In “Perfect Strangers”, of course:))).

I couldn’t wait for new songs. Nobody could wait. The hall was full of excited fans. We were happy to hear “Pictures of Home”, but we wanted to see how “Junkyard Blues” sounded on the stage.

The old stuff was played in a very original way. I’ve never heard such an interpretation. Especially “Pictures of Home” and “Ted the Mechanic” sounded unconventional. As if I heard new songs… I was surprised.

The scenery was unusual as well. A big screen with a reproduction of the new DP album. Two smaller screens with extraordinary lights projected. I liked these two ones the most.

Six new songs sounded great although I didn’t like “Before Time Began”. I think this piece doesn’t fit for gigs. But I also think Ian Gillan’s opinion is different and he will never give up singing it at concerts.

Excellent playing from Don Airey. Very original organ solo. I haven’t heard him play this way so far. And when he played “Living Wreck”, I felt as if I heard Jon Lord!

Excellent performance from Steve Morse as well. “Contact Lost” turning smoothly into a beautiful “cosmic” solo, then into “The Well Dressed Guitar”… He was always changing his guitars. I saw two new ones, the colour of violets:).

It was very kind of the musicians to play “Things I Never Said”. I can’t have the Japanese “Rapture” record, so I listened to this nice track with a big pleasure.

The DP musicians likes inviting other ones lately. They did it this time, too. Their guest – Uli Jon Roth – played “Black Night” with them. He did it well, but I had the impression that he was too shy.

In general, the show was cool. New decorations, new songs, new interpretations… Even new instruments. What else can I say? Deep Purple is evergreen. I was dead tired of my journey from Warsaw, but very happy as usual. I like DP gigs so much.

Many thanks and see you in Poland!

Joanna Ostrowiecka