Bombay Calling 1995
All these years I have been reading reviews and never did it occur to me till now that I should write a review about the ONLY Purple gig I have ever seen, Deep Purple in Bombay, partly due to the fact that this must have been one of their first (the third one exactly) with Steve Morse (and thus the historic value) :-)......
I had been a fan of deep purple ever since 1989 and in those college years of mine in India, never even once did I think that I'll ever get to see the band I love so much live, and gosh - it happened! Must have been a very big event for us rock lovers in India because, all the papers were flowing with purple news in the headlines (I think I must have ALL the clippings from every paper publishing purple news in bombay for all the days that they were) Purple's arrival, Purple's concert, Purple's press interviews, Purple on the FM, Purple quizes on the radio... It was Purple everywhere....
Well, me and my friends bought our tickets well ahead in advance (obviously) and waited for the grand day, the venue was Andheri Sports Complex, and the crowd must have been 10 to 12 thousand or more, the day, 8th of April, 1995. The tickets were a bit expensive and it did cost us students a lot of money, but who cares :-)???
After the opening band Millenium, finished their 45 minutes set, it was a long wait before purple started,the stage was dark for a long time and then someone (Paicey??) shouted "Hey, don't touch my drums", and it all started at once, the lights, the drum opening to "Fireball" and the HUGE applause from the crowd... Man!! It was a dream come true (I still feel that elevation after all these years).
Purple were going thru their set pretty fast and confidently (obviously!!), not wasting much time in announcements or talks with the audience, I can't remember the exact set list, but it included, "Fireball", "Pictures Of Home", "Space Truckin'" ,The Battle Rages On," "Anya", "Woman From Tokyo", "Black Night", "When A Blind Man Cries", "Maybe I'm A Leo", "Child In Time", "Lazy", "Perfect Strangers", "Speed King" et all (not necessarily in that order). One of the highlights of the show was when Jon was doing his instrumental thing, and he suddenly started playing "Soldier Of Fortune" (just the piano) and the whole crowd started singing with him. Well if I remember correctly, the crowd was singing along in EVERY song.... Yes it was, even I was (later in a press conference, Ian Gillan voiced his surprise to the crowd's singing by saying (not the exact words) "I was surprised to see the audience sing even for more obscure songs like "Fireball". The kids in India are just like the rest of the world, totally potty...."). Purple even did the "Purpendicular Waltz" from their yet unreleased album. Then suddenly in the middle (or we hoped so) of the show, Ian Gillan said, thank you Bombay and the band left the stage, only to bounce back with those classics, "Smoke On The Water" and "Highway Star". Man, that was a perfect end.
There was lot of skepticism regarding the lead guitarist, people were there with "we want Blackmore" on their t-shirts, and even I personally missed Blackmore (I play the guitar in my band, so can you guess my idol??) but after the show (or even during it) a lot of these thoughts were melting away, we were like, hey this new chap from Dixie whatever (believe me when I tell you, none of us had heard Dixie Dregs or even knew it existed till then) is cool - and we were extra happy thinking about the fact that Purple, after all, will be there for many years to come albeit, without the man in black.....
Well, now it's 2001, and I'm in california and waiting for the chance when Purple play this part of the world, so that I can catch up with what I missed......