Burn Tour - Nassau Coliseum
Bummed about the departures of Ian Gillan and Roger Glover, I nevertheless loved the Burn album and eagerly anticipated this gig - the first time I'd ever had the chance to catch Purple live.
On the way to the show, my two pals and I traipsed through the high grass of Mitchell Field imbibing Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill and smoking more than our fair share of Mother Nature. Upon arrival at the Coliseum, we found at least one poor chap already down for the count in the lobby.
The Coliseum was packed with a fired-up crowd 14,000 strong . The opening act was Savoy Brown, another favorite band of mine, who showed up true to lead axeman Kim Simmonds' mercurial nature with an entirely different line-up than I expected.
Purple came on loud, hard, and clean in clouds of white smoke with a dynamite version of Burn. Blackmore was on fire all night, manhandling his white Strat on jawdropping runs that confirmed to me that he was certainly as good as advertised. Purple roared through much of the new album, and I was pretty pleased with how well Coverdale and Hughes handled the classic stuff - Smoke On The Water, Space Truckin', etc.
Too bad one of my pals missed it. Tanked to the blowholes, he nodded off shortly before Purple came on and stayed nodded off through a sonic barrage that, I believe, had been noted by the Guiness Book of World Records as the world's loudest. [Albeit at a different show, but yes. Rasmus] No small feat, that. At least one of us remembers the superb show.