![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/mcbride2.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/gillan2.jpg)
Lukewarm in Canberra
Last night in Canberra was Deep Purple concert number seven and Status Quo concert number four for me.
Staus Quo have still got it after 40 years. Purple must have loved having them as the support act for the Australian leg. From the first song people were on their feet. Well done guys.
Purple were also good, but…
Steve Morse is a brilliant guitarist. No question there. And I am well aware that he is not Ritchie Blackmore. And I also know that Steve Morse has his own style. But, for me, I found that on some songs, HS and SOTW in particular, the balls the guitar sound needs just weren’t there. They are both songs that are a hard driving guitar riff based songs and that’s what was missing.
This was their last Australian show, and it showed. It was like they just couldn’t wait to get off stage. Everything seemed to be done in a rush.
I saw Don Airy with Rainbow and Whitesnake and he is a much better keyboard player than what was seen last night. Roger Glover is himself. Always solid, always stable.
Ian Paice was solid but looked like he had had enough and just wanted to go to the horse races.
Ian Gillan is like the rest of us who were there for the Fireball tour, just getting on in years.
Was I disappointed? No. Was I over the moon? No. Have I seen worse performances?? Yes. Have I seen better?? By Purple, Hell yes.
All tours these days seem to be focused on stadiums. It is nice to see that there are still some honest down to earth musos who still do it (or appear to) for the people that matter the most, the paying public.
Will I go again? I honestly don’t know.
James Livingstone
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing