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Ringsted Kongrescenter, Ringsted, Denmark
June 26, 2004

Silver Tongue
Woman from Tokyo
I've Got Your Number
Strange Kind Of Woman
Bananas
Knocking At Your Back Door
Contact Lost
Steve Morse solo
Well Dressed Guitar
Don Airey solo (incl. Den danske sang er en..., Olé Olé Olé, Star Wars)
Perfect Strangers
Highway Star
Demon's Eye (first performance!)
Lazy (incl. Ian Paice solo)
When A Blind Man Cries
Space Truckin'
Smoke On The Water

Hush
Roger Glover solo
Running Bear (over the chords to Hit the Road Jack!)
Hit the Road Jack
Black Night

When the Midtfyns Festival went bankrupt, Deep Purple's Danish date was moved from a (probably) windy and muddy field into a purpose-built concert venue at Ringsted. This was of course a brilliant idea.
Moray (The Engineer) did complain that the venue didn't fascilitate flying the P.A. where he wanted to (putting it too far into corner made it difficult to get clear definition), but anyone listening to the show would call the nice man a nitpicker. (But it sure is good to see him back, even if just temporarily for the summer tour.)
As it was, Denmark was treated to a goodie of a show with more than its fair share of surprises. Right from the off it was obvious the band, and Ian Gillan in particular, were having a ball onstage. A very responsive crowd was edging him on, and when he did his little wave at Don Airey during one of his solos, the whole crowd followed suit with arms stretched aloft. With his voice intact and weird facial expressions én masse, Gillan made sure every area of the audience was feeling his enthusiasm - and they paid it back in spades. (Curiously enough we weren't complimented on our good vibes... ;-)
Silver Tongue and I've Got Your Number were their usual powerful selves and a fair share of the crowd appeared to know the new songs and sing along to them. Gillan was joking around with Steve and Roger's two backing vocal microphones, alternating between his own mic and theirs.
The ending to Strange Kind Of Woman saw Ian Paice roll out a mini solo that enhanced the energy level onstage even further. Bananas was pure fruitful fun at 100 mph. Long may it remain in the set. Please!
"This is illegal in some countries, it's painful in most - unless you use the right ointment," was Gillan's not-so-subtle introduction to Knocking At Your Back Door. Airey's synth work on this added to the songs grandeur.
Then Gillan introduced an emotionally charged Contact Lost which scaled orbital heights. A beauty. The ensuing solo included some new elements that had the crowd watching in awe. Well Dressed Guitar however, could easily be pensioned off at the next board meeting.
Airey's solo featured a couple of Danish songs that went largely unrecognised, but quite frankly, Don, isn't it time to stop when you start associating the Star Wars theme with Don Airey instead of the movies?
His solo lead into an immense Perfect Strangers in which Morse kept turning around for guitar feedback that never seemed to work quite the way he wanted it to. Fortunately it takes an unusually attentive anorak to spot a bad night from Steve Morse. Even his bad nights are good nights.
We were 55 minutes into the show when Gillan introduced a song "written on a bus to Portsmouth." It seemed a little early in the set, because I expected it to be the set closer. But maybe we'd only be getting the short festival set?
At the end of Highway Star I was made to eat my disbelieving words, nay, choke on them, as Ian introduced a song from "a previous album" and left Don Airey to kick it off with a strangely familiar 'ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum' riff (on synth, arrgh!). Demon's Eye! Now there's a surprise.
The song had been mentioned in Iceland as a possibility, but in the end wasn't played. Save for a few contemporary 70s try-outs, Ringsted thus saw the live premier of Demon's Eye. Thank you. And while it didn't seem to do much for the crowd (honestly, I was too busy taking in the song to notice), it was competent and concise with nary a deviation from the album version.
At this point I lost touch. Wonderful. Would the next song be the evening's closer? Were we approaching a Speed King jamathon? Or what?
No, there was plenty of kick left in the horses yet. A cunningly deceptive organ solo from Don Airey, which included bits of the original Speed King intro, took a left turn and became a rousing version of Lazy, complete with a lengthy two- (and one-) handed solo from the guv'nor himself, Ian Paice. Such fervour.
Like a few of the other songs, When A Blind Man Cries and Space Truckin' were performed in scaled down versions. This is not a slight on the performance, it just means the songs were shorter.
What is Steve Morse's biggest blind spot? It could be his inability to play the Smoke On The Water riff with adequate gusto and menace. Tonight was no exception. Maybe someone ought to play him the Classic Albums Machine Head DVD, where Ritchie offers a little 'how-to' instruction...
In a momentary fit of stream-of-consciousness singing, Gillan extended the ad-lib "burning down" to become the hookline from Rocky Sharpe & The Replays' Rama Lama Ding Dong - "bam-ba-ba-bam ba-ba-ba-ba-bam..."
The advantage of attending a show this early in the tour is you hardly know what's coming next. I've consciously tried before to not become familiar with the current setlists before I see a show, but it's a little hard in this position. Thus, Hush was a surprise first encore. Don Airey's solo took off in style and then he brought everything down to a, well... hush, with the band keeping things nicely just below a very subtle boiling point - till he brought them all back up again. You can almost reach out and touch the dynamics in this band. Tangibility can be an art form.
Roger Glover's groovy solo was spliced onto the chords to Hit The Road Jack (that's how improvised that song is!), but Gillan had a better idea. He did sing the song's melody, but the words were those of Running Bear, the old end-of-show-nonsense favourite of his. Steve said later he'd tried to pick the notes for it, to accompany Ian, but he hadn't been able to pull it off - possibly because Gillan used the melody to Hit The Road Jack!
During his extended solo bit in Black Night, Steve managed to quote a couple of full verses of Led Zeppelin's Black Dog - "over a shuffle," as he put it afterwards. It was a fun idea, but maybe the relevance could improve if he'd quote Purple songs instead? Likewise Airey's solo. The number of classical pieces he strings together for his solo could be replaced by quotes from the vast catalogue of rock classics he has contrbuted to personally - from Rainbow over Ozzy to Whitenake. Just an idea that would perhaps also enlighten the Purple audiences to his illustrious past.
Generally it was enthusiastic thumbs up all round as we filed out of the be-carpeted venue and into a backroom to witness poor Sweden losing their cool in Portugal. Apparently the art of match rigging takes some practice... ;-)
Rasmus Heide

Well, what can I say? Great as always!
I have seen Deep Purple every time they've been in Denmark since the reunion, plus three times in Sweden including the Concerto.
We came early to Ringsted, so I managed to get my spot at the barrier (as always). On my right was standing two nice ladies, they told me that they hadn't seen Deep Purple for many years. In fact they hadn't seen them since 1972 in KB-Hallen in Copenhagen (Live in Denmark '72). Behind me was a man who had been there too. If only I could say the same, but I was only nice years old then.
Deep Purple hit off with Silver Tongue, that's dinosaur rock, big and weighty. Woman from Tokyo and I got your number are really rocking live. Strange kind of woman was much like the original, but with some great guitarwork from Steve. Bananas is funny, but it works quite well live.
As far as I remember Knocking at your backdoor hasn't been in the set for some years, nice to have it back.
Contact lost, very emotional, and a nice solo from Steve Morse leading to The well dressed guitar, which seems to get better and better everytime they play it.
Then the Don Airey solo, leading to Perfect strangers. Though he included a couple of Danish songs, I think the style in Don's solo with all the classical influence is too much adopted from Jon Lord and it seems to me that he is playing a bit on the routine instead of making a solo more of his own, maybe somewhere else in the set.
In the middle of Highway star Roger Glover noticed a man with a camera in the front row (number three on my left) and signaled to Steve Morse to come over. So, while playing like hell, Steve came running across the stage to Roger, both with great smiles on their faces, starting headbanging together so that this man could get some photos.
Demons eye - I've never heard it live before, what a surprise, just like Mary Long at the Skanderborg Festival in 2001.
Lazy, with some great organ and guitar playing, and a fantastic drum solo from Ian Paice including the one hand roll, more powerfull that those he did in Århus and Copenhagen last November.
When a blind man cries, this lovely tune. Space truckin', as powerful as always, and Smoke on the water with singalong.
The encores startet up with Ian Gillan on harmonica, playing the old German tune Muss Ich denn (which Elvis Presley made a vesion of many years ago), the others joined in, and suddenly you found yourself in a German gasthaus mit sauerkraut und lederhosen. These guys can create an atmosphere.
Then came Hush followed up by an exiting solo from Roger Glover including Black Sabbath's Iron man.
Then Ian Gillan walked over to Roger, telling him something while he was playing, they both laugh and Ian starts singing Hit the road Jack, not just the chorus but the whole song while joking and laughing with the others.
At last, Black night, with singalong, great solos and everything.
Once again a wonderfull evening with the greatest band in the world.
Ole Andersen