Back to
Reviews, Europe 2003

Current reviews

Check out Jim Corrigan and Nick Soveiko's photos

Bernd Moest's photos

Olympiahalle, München, Germany
October 31, 2003

Highway Star
Strange Kind of Woman
Silver Tongue
Knocking at your back door
Lazy
Contact Lost
Haunted
Space Truckin'
House of Pain
I got your number
The Well Dressed Guitar
Perfect Strangers
Smoke on the Water

Hush
Hit the road Jack/Black Night

Deep Purple seems to like Munich on Halloween. The last time they played at the Olympiahalle was exactly three years ago during the Concerto tour. This time around the concert marked the beginning of the "Bananas" German Tour and about 9000 people showed up (far more than in 1998 when they played a half filled Olympiahalle during the "Abandon" tour).
And what a great show it was. Personally I could have done without Molly Hatchet who put up a quite boring old-fashioned rock show. But a fair portion of the crowd loved them and they were even allowed to play an encore.
At about 9.30 pm Purple hit the stage and got off to a perfect start with "Highway Star". Good to see it back as the opener again. After that they launched straight into "Strange Kind of Woman", which was rarely played during the recent summer shows. The sound was great (and LOUD!), the band played extremely tight and had found some fine new arrangements for the old classics. The five new songs also came across quite well (especially "House of Pain"), although the Munich crowd seemed to be a bit focused on "Smoke" and "Perfect Strangers".
Gillan was in fine form and kept on fooling around with his tambourine. Steve accompanied Ian's "solos" by playing some bits of "Mr. Tambourine Man".
The only criticism: There was very few improvisation, most songs were kept quite short. I would also have loved to hear some more "adventurous" classics or at least "Sometimes I feel like screaming" (which they apparently did at the Barcelona show).
Also, I think Don should not play such a "Lord like" solo before "Perfect Strangers". He's got enough quality on his own. Nevertheless, the people in Munich gave him a big round of applause for playing a snippet of the old folk song "In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus" (as Jon used to do during Purple's Muncih concerts).
After 80 minutes the main part of the show was over, the Olympiahalle audience gave Purple a huge round of applause and the band returned for a very groovy "Hush" and a short improvisation around "Hit the road Jack", which led straight into "Black Night". A great show was over.
Go out and see the band on this "Bananas" tour.
Jörg Laumann

I will never learn to accept the attitude of the concerts organizers at the Munich Olympiahalle. Maybe it can be understood from the point of cash flow that this venue's capacity of 8000 people is right, but the sound is awful! Nevertheless I do go to there sometimes when an attractive act is playing - maybe my fault.
As for DP itself: Gillan was great, Roger cool as he is, Steve over plays a little too much - his technique is great, but "less can be more!".
It was the first time I saw Don Airey with DP - and he was really, really good. I didn't miss Jon at all, from the plerformance point of view. Don really get the point in working with the Hammond the way Jon always did! Very fine! And a great keyboard solo!
Paicey didn't seem to be to lucky that day - especially with the drum solo he seemed to get bored very soon and stopped. But - as a drummer I know enough about bad circumstances - he might have been mad about the kick drum microphone dying in the middle of Lazy. But nevertheless he's still solid as a rock, pounding straight ahead with great fast licks.
I don't know about prices in other countries but more than 40 EUROs (about 80 former DeutschMark or 40 bucks) is generally too much - especially for this venue! All the concert prices have just been switched EURO to MARK 1:1, which means every concert is now double the price than a few years ago! [And you wonder why some countries refuse to join the Euro? Rasmus in Denmark] My tip: Go to Circus Krone next time - raise the price to even 50-60 EUROs and the people will be lucky - because it will be a memorable event - and for that the price won't be as important as in a bad sounding venue! Believe me - let's remember: Rush, Status Quo, Zappa, Loudness, Nugent, Mother's Finest, Vonda Sheppard - everyone of these artists had a great sound at Circus Krone in Munich.
Anyway it was a fine concert - I got the feeling that these guys are onstage because they like to play!
Steve Hatton, Bavaria

Munich review in German