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Hanako Akasaka's photos from the rehearsal

Akiko Hada's photos from in-store signing session

Olympic Hall, Seoul, Korea
March 28, 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 (incl. Arirang - Korean trad. music) / Perfect Strangers
Highway Star
Doing It Tonight
Pictures Of Home
House Of Pain
Lazy
When A Blind Man Cries
Space Truckin'
Smoke On The Water

Hush
Hit The Road Jack
Black Night

Just got back from the Seoul show.
I was lucky enough to attend both the Korean shows (the other one being Daegu on Friday - see previous review). Both concerts were brilliant but there were a few subtle differences at the Seoul gig tonight.
Firstly, they added House Of Pain before Lazy which was a much appreciated addition. Secondly, the audience was louder and more willingly to stand up and dance.
In terms of performance, Ian Gillan seemed to be in an even more relaxed mood making various comments such as "it always rains in Seoul" and singling people out for praise. "thank you very much man!" pointing at particular fans. He also mentioned that he hoped the ticket to Seoul was a "return ticket" hinting that thy'd love to come back soon.
Yet again the band played an energetic, entertaining and fun performance. You could see it in their faces, just how much they enjoy playing.
Ben Doyle

In Korea, old fans and teenagers used to flock together to DP’s gig. At their first tour in Korea at 1995 (which was the early era of Steve Morse line-up, Battle Rages On Tour.), most of the audience were long-waiting old fans. But at their third visit to this country (Triport Rock Festival 1999), they became a legend. The band performed an unbelievable show facing the worst weather of rain and storm. The danger of electric damages were no obstacle to this band and the kids, most of whom had gathered to see Rage Against Machine or Dream Theater, discovered the forgotten old hero at that time. From then on, the portion of young fans increased more and more as DP visited, because they had wanted to confirm the legend in 1999.
The two shows of Banana tour in Korea at March 26 (Daegu) and 28 (Seoul) also did show this tendency. Young and old fans were mixed on halves in the hall.
Screaming kids, as are always in any country, were really wild. When a member of the band gave his hand to them, they did not let go of his hand. Steve and Roger missed playing their parts sometimes for this reason and moreover, Steve’s bracelet was torn apart at the Seoul show. At the end of show, Steve allowed the request of autographs on CDs from a fan near the stage and kids crowded to this kind man. He might have become frightened of this situation and hurried backstage. Big Ian tried to calm down these wild fans saying “Take it easy, boys…”
At the show, almost every time when Don played his solo part, Big Ian gestured keyboard playing with his hand which motioned crowds to 'keyboard-along'. The crowd sincerely followed his instruction and the band liked that. But to my regret, the mixing balance of sound seemed not to be right. The volume of Don’s keyboard was somewhat suppressed by guitar. Steve asked the sound crews to increase the volume of Don’s part continuously but it seemed not to be improved easily. (But I thought the sound was better in Seoul than Daegu.)
The finger picked riff to House of Pain by Steve sounded like Mark Knopfler in Money for Nothing. For the intro to Highway Star, Steve added the riff of Born in the USA, and followed the fast alternate picking licks with bluegrass feel, which was same as the previous gig at Daegu.
The mood of show was really delightful. The audience enjoyed the band a lot and the band enjoyed the audience. The happy people of young and old took photographs of themselves before the empty stage, pledging to see again this gray-haired rock band who always play from their heart.
What a show! The show must go on!
Dae-Won Lee