[% META title = 'Tour Reviews' %]
Organ donor wanted? Ask Rick Emerson...
Set list:
Fireball
Woman From Tokyo
Ted The Mechanic
Lazy
Knocking At Your Back Door
Space Truckin'
Perfect Strangers
Speed King
Smoke On The Water (without riffs intro)
encore:
Hush
Highway Star
This was not the same band that played this same venue last June. The band appears very tired. Although Space Truckin' was a welcome addition there was something missing with the performance. Ian Gillan's voice sounded thin.When you had Dio and Meine singing before him, Ian was out of his league tonight. It appears to me Don Airey is the reason. While Don is a good player and nice guy you could tell he is not Jon Lord, and the band knows this too. It was especially evident during Highway Star. In fact Steve's solo was so out of tune I wanted to put him out of his misery. If Lord is unwilling to record with the band my only thought of hope would be to ask Keith Emerson to join Purple With ELP and his latest solo venture going nowhere he may be the last hope of bringing Purple back to it's greatness of yore.
Purple go back into the studio in October with a tentative June 2003 releasedate (according to Ian Gillan after the show). Keith if you are reading this pick up the phone and bring this band back to the top where it belongs.