[% META title = 'Tour Reviews' %]
Great crowd, great gig
It was a fantastic nite for a outdoor concert. The Tower City Ampitheater was a big tent type venue next to the Cuyahoga river.
Dio hit the stage at around 650pm. He did a blistering set of tunes from his new CD Killing The Dragon and a lot of older favs. The highlites were the older tunes like Heaven And Hell, Holy Diver, Long Live Rock'n'Roll, Man On The Silver Mountain and Children Of The Sea. The drum solo was a bit much, it should have been replaced with another tune. Doug Aldrich, the guitarist, really played well. Ronnie was in fine form, the best I have heard him in years. He was handed a big banner that said Happy Birthday Ronnie. I guess it was his birthday.
set list:
Killing The Dragon
Egypt
Children Of The Sea
Push
Drum solo
Stand up
Rock'n'Roll
Man On The Silver Mountain
Long Live Rock'n'Roll
Holy Diver
Heaven And Hell
encore:
Last in line
Deep Purple kicked off thier show with Fireball. A way better choice than Woman From Tokyo. The band did sound great. To me they sounded better than last year's show. Ian Gillan and company seemed to wanna top Dio's show. Guess what they did? They played the longest of the three bands this nite.
Don Airey played just as well as Jon Lord ever did. IG's voice was strong except for parts in Speed King. Roger's bass solo and playing was suberb. Steve Morse's was full of fire. He came thru loud and clear.
Well Dressed Guitar got a very good response from the fans. It was the first time I had heard it and was impressed. Ian Paice was brilliant as usual. It didn't look like him sitting behind his drum kit. I guess the gray locks threw me off.
The crowd really got into DP more this show than I have seen in years. I saw a lot more fans this time around in DP gear than in the past. Every song from Fireball to the closer Highway Star got a good reception from the crowd.
After reading a lot of the reviews for this years tour I was very sceptical that the show wouldn't be that good. They proved me wrong. They rocked.
set list:
Fireball ~ Into the Fire (riff)
Woman From Tokyo
Ted The Mechanic
Lazy (with great keyboard intro)
Well Dressed Guitar
Knocking At Your Back Door
Black Night (with a bit of Gary Glitter thrown in)
Don Airey's keyboard solo (great response from the fans)
Perfect Strangers
Speed King (including solos by Steve, Roger and Ian Paice)
Tribute to The Who (which the crowd got really into)
Smoke On The Water
encore:
Highway Star
Scorpions came on after a break and played a short set. They did a few oldies that I was shocked to hear them do. Matthias Jabs did a nice guitar solo and Rudolf Schenker came on during Blackout with a bandaged head like on the Blackout album cover. Overall they sounded pretty good. Klaus Miene hasn't lost any of his voice over the years.
setlist:
Coming Home
Bad Boys Running Wild
The Zoo
Burn The Sky
Tease Me, Please Me
Coast To Coast
In Trance
No One Like You
Jabs guitar solo
Big City Nights
Dynamite
Drum solo
Blackout
encores:
Still Loving You
Rock You Like A Hurricane
A great triple bill, a lot better than last year's triple bill of Skynyrd, Nugent and DP.