Spoiled by previous experience – Gefrath
After I have seen a lot of DP shows over the last 21 years, DP visited a small town very close to my hometown – I could go there by bike!
Only a few words on Alice Cooper – his music and live act is not my cup of tea – but I appreciated the opportunity to have a beer. And I was not the only one who made such an decision.
After the break – 15 minutes for stage-conversion and 15 minutes for the vacuum cleaner – I guess as Ian Gillan has no money for shoes – DP entered the stage with Pictures of home.
After the brilliant Dortmund show in February 2006 with a lot of music from Rapture of the Deep and the excellent Living Wreck – which, by the way, is perfectly associated to Wrong man from ROTD: strong, heavy guitar, dark and awesome organ sound and this amazing rhythm – it is not so easy to get satisfied again.
Furthermore the light show was very much reduced and the TV screens was omitted without substitution due to the small hall – so we couldn’t watch the brilliant dexterity of Steve Morse and Don Airey closely.
So what is there to say. Once again they were fantastic. As it can be read in so many other reviews they smiled, enjoyed their music and did a really perfect job. Ok, the magic moments when Jon Lord did his solos are lost forever and Blackmore is a much more emotional guitar player than Steve Morse (who is a fantastic technician) but I love Steve for keeping this band alive – I really believe he did!
My personal highlight on this show was the re-introduction of When a blind man cries. And I’m referring to a lot of reviewers that were a little disappointed as no songs from Bananas, Purpendicular or The battle rages on (does someone remember the fantastic “Ramshackle Man” with Joe Satriani on guitar – a perfect live song?) were played.
I would really appreciate if they played for three hours next time – this maybe gives enough space to include all songs that I like to hear – or better five hours to be on the safe side.
All in all they did a really good and experienced job here in Grefrath. It was the first time that my 18-years-old son joined me for a DP concert and I believe he’s still wondering how such old guys could make such good music (but he would never admit that).
And me – as always I’m looking forward to see them again.
Setlist (as far as I remember):
Pictures of home
Things I never said
Hush
Rapture of the deep
Strange kind a woman
Fireball
The well dressed guitar
When a blind man cries
Lazy
keyboard solo / Perfect Strangers
Highway Star
Space Truckin`
Smoke on the water
encores:
Blues session for Claude Nobs
(they exercise for Montreux with some help from the audience – it didn`t work)
Black night
kind regards to all Purple – Fans
Markus Horster