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Ten out of ten

Deep Purple live at Mahaffey Theater (St. Petersburg, USA 2022-02-12)

My 10th time seeing Deep Purple perform. 1st time in that venue. The theatre hold a litttle over 2000 and appeared to be full. The horseshoe shapes made it so that there wasn’t a bad seat in the house and the acoustics were very good. I looked like a much older audience than what I’ve seen in the Midwest, but I guess that is normal for Florida. But the nice perk of that is that I finally got to sit through an entire concert! My back and knees are thankful.

The opening act was The Georgia Thunderbolt, a new southern rock band that just released their 1st album in the fall. They were good with a really good singer and excellent lead guitarist. The singer mentioned before their last song that opening for Deep Purple is the highlight of their career so far. The crowd got into them.

On to Deep Purple. There was no evidene of a two year hiatus. They played with high energy and stellar perfomances from start to finish. They played the same Machinehead heavy set list as the show a couple of nights before. But in addition to Nothing At All, they also played Throw My Bones from Whoosh! Solos by Steve and Don were spectacular on the new songs. The audience sang along to SOTW and Hush as expected, but many also sang along to Throw My Bones. Moving Roger’s bass solo before Space Trucking works very well. Caught in the Act leading to Hush has probably the longest encore that I’ve ever seen. The band’s ability to turn on a dime transitioning to new riffs and tempo changes from song to song in the medley was impressive. Afterwards fans were still singing the chorus to Hush as we walked through the lobby.

Who knows if Purple will do another American tour. If so, then I am ready to turn it up to 11.

review by Dr. Bob



10 Comments to “Ten out of ten”:

  1. 1
    biggo says:

    Hi everyone,

    if someone can find a video from Throw My Bones on youTube, I would be very thankful !

    Cheers !

  2. 2
    Nic G says:

    Great show last night, thank you for the review and photo post!

  3. 3
    Uwe Hornung says:

    Did Roger play the Stingray throughout?

  4. 4
    Reverend Harry Longfallis says:

    2-3 shows in Florida & they’re off to Europe & the Middle East??? Why no shows in California???

  5. 5
    Ivan says:

    I was at the concert, my 5th time seeing them live.

    I treasured every moment, the set was an hour and 20 mins from start to finish.

    They sounded fantastic, as always.

    I miss them playing staples such as Black Night, Knocking at your Back Door, Speed King, Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming…but it is what it is.

    Roger and Paice out of this world, and always.

    I wish I knew they were headlining the Legends of Rock cruise alongside Styx this week.

  6. 6
    Dr. Bob says:

    #3, I just went through my photos of Roger and he used two different basses. One in the early and late parts of the show, and the one in the photo that posted in the middle portion.

  7. 7
    Uwe Hornung says:

    Danke, I’ve meanwhile seen him switch too. Might be a down-tuning thing, a half step lower to accomodate Big Ian’s range on some songs. Generally, Roger is not really an instrument changer during gigs unless – as he did for a while – he dug out his old Rickenbacker 4001 for SOTW.

  8. 8
    Grzegorz says:

    Throw My Bones (part) https://youtu.be/1RtsEzr46eI?t=492

  9. 9
    Dan Russell says:

    It was a great concert. Unfortunately, a few days later I found I’d caught COVID. Methinks it was from the concert. Rock n Roll doesn’t come without its risks, eh? I had a mild case . . . felt like a normal cold or flu. All good now.

  10. 10
    Dan Russell says:

    Incidentally, to my prior post (if it gets posted), I’m double-vaxxed and boosted. Sad to see some of the band caught it too. Hope everyone is well.

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