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Hall 3, Convention and Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong, China
April 7, 2004
Silver Tongue
Woman From Tokyo
I Got Your Number
Strange Kind Of Woman
Bananas
Knocking At Your Back Door
Contact Lost
Morse Solo / Well-Dressed Guitar
Don Airey Solo (incluing Star Wars, Turkish March, "Kowloon, Hong Kong")
Perfect Strangers
Highway Star
Doing It Tonight
Pictures Of Home
House Of Pain
Lazy
When A Blind Man Cries
Space Truckin' (with drum solo)
Smoke On The Water
Hush
Hit The Road Jack
Black Night
I was really excited to see Deep Purple come to Hong Kong again
after 2001. Even though the show starts half an hour later than the proposed
time, when the band members come out to the stage, many people rush to the front
and most of the people were standing up already.
Jon Lord left the band, but after watching the show I know Don Airey is the
best replacement. He retains the great Hammond sound. In addition, he also adds
in his own style in various places. Everything is just a best fit in each song.
When watching his solo, how can I react but just opening my mouth. Really a
good job.
Another highlight should be Ian Gillan, his voice is just the same as it was
in 1972. When watching videos of the reunion from 1984, his voice had lost some
power then and he couldn't hit the high notes sometimes. After listening to
Space Truckin' tonight, I really want to give a big hand to him. When singing,
"They got music in the solar system..." he rocks the venue. In addition,
his classic saying of "I thaaaaaank you!" is always on a Purple lover's
mind.
Steve Morse had a good blend with Deep Purple. So I definitely won't say that
Purple without Ritchie is not Purple. Steve Morse already built in his trademarks
and brings in his style to Deep Purple. Although his signed guitar Picks cost
160 HKD, it is still worth it. I heard a guy asking, is the signature real?
The girl who was selling it said, "Steve signed it just half and hour ago
right here!"
Somehow, I really want to listen to Maybe I'm A Leo and Never Before live, but
on the Asian tour they cut out these two. The happiest thing is can listen to
Pictures of Home live! Smoke On The Water and Highway Star were definitely the
two high points of the whole night. When I watch the live DVDs and hear people
sing "smoke on the water", I already feel the charisma of the audience.
In a concert, when all the people sing it, you can feel what is classic and
what is rock'n'roll power.
The most appreciated point is that they include many of the Bananas album songs.
Those songs had the color of 70's rock but definitely not old school. The song
Bananas is fantastic already when listening to the CD. When it came alive onstage,
it showed off the great skills of Steve and Don.
Thanks a lot to Deep Purple for the great night on April
7. I was getting excited when I read reviews from other countries, but the excitement
of those reviews are far behind the live atmosphere. So if Deep Purple come
to your country or neighbourhood, seeing the concert is a must for any Purple
fan.
Best wishes to the two Ians, Steve, Don and Roger. I look forward to your next
show in Hong Kong!
Dominic Kwok
It was a very long day for my friend George and myself. We spent
the day working in Guangzhou, China. We are working on a new toy and had it
synced to Smoke on the Water and had our Deep Purple shirts on from the show
we saw in 2002 in Cleveland, Ohio.
Around 6:00pm things started to go wrong when are car broke down in China. We
had to walk from the Century Plaza to the Lo Wu boarder. George just got a new
MP3 player at the Golden Computer Plaza in Shan Shui Po and was cranking on
the Deep Purple. We had a tough time getting across the boarder when George
said that we are just "walking the earth" to see another Deep Purple
show. I said "Deep Purple in China".
To mMake a long story short we got to the Hong Kong Convention Center at 9:30pm
and missed a large part of the show. However, we were just in time for Smoke
On The Water. Roger Glover and Steve Morse really carried the band. Ian Gillan
had to turn up his mike. Ian still has a great voice but tries to belt them
out only to lose his power.
We were also happy that Purple came back for a few more songs. They really got
the crowd going with Hush. This is a classic song and has been lost in the mainstream.
Over all I was very happy that Deep Purple is still going strong. Hell, Ian
is still going around with no shoes on and Roger can whale on the bass. Steve
Morse jams.
F. Rog
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