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Purple rock the Heineken! – Amsterdam
January 26, 2006, cold outside, especially when you’re waiting!
6.30pm opening of the doors and the audience, a lot of “Too Old Too Rock & Roll, Too Young Too Die” but also younger ones, even children (begged by their parents to come with them*) all searching for a nice place.
The support-act in Amsterdam is the SQY Rocking Team, a band from the south of Netherlands with the mission to warm up the audience. A nice try, good music and a singer, who’s a party-animal too. Always difficult for a support-act and sometimes, there are fantastic musicians as I can remember Woody Woodmansey U-Boat, a support-act for Uriah Heep, long, long ago.
Light’s out at 21.00 and on two video-screens we can see the members backstage coming out of a box and going to the stage. The opening is an excellent Pictures Of Home, what an amazing sound! Their new flashing lightshow is really fantastic.
The sound in the Heineken Music Hall is perfect, the show’s fantastic, very loud, very clear!
The setlist is an historical tour of the classic Deep Purple combined with their today’s music, a lot of Rapture Of The Deep songs which come out in an excellent way!
Unfortunately no Bananas or Abandon and the only Purpendicular-track is Ted The Mechanic. It’s great to hear songs as Wrong Man, Before Time Began, the beautiful Junkyard Blues and especially Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye is a superb live-track!
You can feel the happiness of the always friendly old men and they are still such great musicians. Steve’s smashing his guitarwork into the hall, Paice and Glover, the powerful engine of the band, Gillan’s fantastic singing and explaining about the songs, he’s great and Don’s work on the keys, which we cannot only hear but also watch his fingers on the video-screens is amazing, thanks Don, for the ‘Tulpen uit Amsterdam’, all amazing!
The well-known Highway Star, Mary Long, Lazy and this time Space Truckin’ and Living Wreck and of course, their signature, Smoke On The Water without an intro tonight.
An encore with the rocking Hush and Black Night and two hours later the show’s over.
As Ian always screams to the audience, we now can say to them: We Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaank Yoooooooooooooooooooh ! ! !
Hans Stellingwerf
*(In the Saturday-newspaper one of the kids has written a letter: he reluctantly joined his father and it was his first-time-concert. He thought, why do I have to go to a concert of old men and their old-fashioned music but when he heard the first track, he changed his opinion: Dad, you’re totally right!)
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