Tight, explosive, incredible!
Having been a DP fanatic fan for 30 years now, and only seeing them twice before, once in their heyday in '74 and then 2 years ago on their Abandon tour, I was very excited about this show. Us DP fans are extremely sour about opening before Skynyrd and only playing a shortened set. But nonetheless, it was the best show I've seen from them.
They were tight, explosive and sounded incredible.
Nugent opened first and was pretty good for an opening act, although he didn't run around like the madman he used to be, but all in all a good guitarist and some pretty good songs.
On to Purple. They came out all dressed like rockers, very casual and very relaxed. Gillan looks great especially with short hair (Ian, don't grow it back). My seats were about 13 rows back but way to the left, too far left to really enjoy the seats. The set list included:
"Woman From Tokyo"
"Ted The Mechanic"
"Lazy"
"No One Came"
"Fools"
"Pictures Of Home"
"Perfect Strangers"
"When A Blind Man Cries"
"Smoke On The Water"
Encores:
"Hush"
"Highway Star"
"Woman From Tokyo" got the crowds attention immediately and rocked the place. The Skynyrd crowd really didn't know the next couple of songs, but the place errupted when they played "Perfect Strangers", a song I have grown to be "played out" since every live show includes this. BUT this song was amazing!! "When A Blind Man Cries" stunned the crowd. Morse is king. The crowd went wild for "Smoke On The Water". And the encores were rocking!!!
Pros:
God-damn - great rock show. Man they sounded absolutely incredible. Having fun - really tight. I always loved Blackmore and I felt Morse was just OK last time in 1999, BUT he was GREAT last night (Stevie - you have my utmost respect). Blackmore - See Ya!!! Steve Morse was the best guitarist on stage last night by far!!! Gillan sounded incredible, outstanding screeching and great on "Blind Man". Love this band!!!
Cons:
One on my cons always about Gillan is he doesn't involve the audience too much. The crowd only sang one chorus of "Smoke". When Skynyrd was on, they talked to the audience all night. "Hey Long Island, Hey NY, how we doing?? C'mon clap your hands." Ian doesn't do that. He needs to get the crowd more into the show. Force them to stand up and clap. That's what the audience wants to do
anyway, sometimes they just need coercing. The only other CON of course, was that it was too short so they couldn't play some other stuff.
Skynyrd - I stayed for that show and even my friend said after Purple that that would be a hard act to follow, but Skynyrd did great too. They didn't sound as tight and good as Purple, but still all in all - a great rock SHOW!!!
MK7 is here to stay. They finally seem happy with themselves and it shows in their music!!!
[ reviews | the highway star ]