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UK reviews 2002 (rescheduled)
 

Worth travelling for

When my wife and I went to the gig in Cologne about 11 days ago, we hoped to have a nice evening with good 'old ' Purple music. What we witnessed is in my review of Köln 28 august.

What we witnessed on Friday 6 September in London is hard to describe. You often read in reviews how wonderful the show was, the best a guy has ever seen, etc. But this grand opening of the UK was even beforehand full of hope and fear. Hope for the return of Jon Lord, fear that he might not come or that things would not work out as well as expected or hoped for. So we travelled from Holland at 5 am from our town to the Hoek of Holland. We arrived well in time and found the venue sold out.

First The Planets. Well... OK.

And then: Deep Purple. It felt strange and it felt tense. From the beginning one could see how every member of the group tried to do his best, or should say his utmost. And then: after Don Airey's solo the darkening of the concert hall and the lights returned and in the middle: the return of the Lord, the master on keyboards: mr. Jon Lord. Cries, cheers and Perfect Strangers from the podium. (I only spoil the supprise because it has been spoiled before.)

The remarkable things we noticed looking at the group: a lot of hugs, lots of touching one another, their warmth coming towards the crowd and really filling the venue, but no Child In Time.

After the show we sank down, completely exhausted, grateful to a band capable of joining so much experience with so much warmth and tenderness to let it become so much Deep Purple in hardly 100 minutes this memorable night of friday 6 september. From the bottom of our feelings: We thaaaank you!!

Saturday 7 september

What could we expect after the night before. We could not believe a second night so full of everything we experienced on Friday. And indeed, no. It was a great show, but we also saw relief, relaxation and of course wonderful music again.

Again the lights went out, Jon Lord appeared, much more cheers even compared to the night before, but no, Friday was and would be the grand opening night..

But Deep Purple had a nice surprise for the crowd. They had picked up a bunch of strange people in a pub and look what they found: half of Iron Maiden who played along on Smoke On The Water. Both groups enjoyed themselves very much it seemed, but after the Smoke they were gone with the Smoke and Purple continued.

This second night was in all well worth the trip and a treasure for bootleggers.

Dirk de Hen

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