Montreal, Canada, Nov 21, 1996 by James Baker

Here is a review of the Deep Purple show at Theatre St Denis on Thursday Nov 21.

I went to the Deep Purple show last night. I can sum it up in two words: Fucking awesome. They are like the Deep Purple of old - Jon Lord with his magic Hammond sound and THOSE speakers, Ian Paice like the ad for energiser batteries - he just keeps going and going and ..., Gillan with those bongos and that magic voice and Roger Glover, the backbone of that Deep Purple driving sound. They still concentrate on the music and don't bother much with the light show. But what do Purple fans go to see anyway ?

Steve Morse fits in like he's been there all along, he plays all the old riffs every bit as well as Blackmore, but when it comes time to cut loose, he makes the music all his own. Its like Deep Purple Mk II plus. He did the guitar/voice dual with Gillan (whose best line was "Sorry, I don't do chords."), the guitar/keyboards thing with Jon and a couple of absolute killer solos. One in particular using the volume knob (a la Blackmore) and a digital delay with memory, so that he ended up playing lead over his own rhythm.

The song list was a mixture of the old and the new. The new stuff has a different feel to the old, but is every bit as good. They opened with Hush which sounded fantastic. I always said that they did the best version of that song, and they proved it last night. Other highlights were Speed King (introduced by Ian as a lullaby that he sings to his daughter), Perfect Strangers, Black Night, Highway Star (the last number), all the solos (Jon Lord is amazing and Ian Paice is unstoppable) and the Smoke on the Water/When a Blind Man Cries combination. That one started with a solo from Steve, then into Smoke on the Water, which slowed down into a Jon Lord tour-de-force, then to a brilliant keyboard/guitar duo and into When a Blind Man Cries.

On the whole, a top show but I hope I don't have to wait another 11 years for the next one.

James Baker, Montreal, 22/11/96.

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