God Bless Deep Purple
Some thoughts about the night... First, we pull into the Meadows free parking lot and so many young kids were hanging out drinking and tailgating and confederate flags waving everywhere. So I'm blasting them with Purple. It seemed like they came for the party and not to see LS or any other band. All I could think of was this is a Jimmy Buffet, Grateful Dead type atmosphere... Not that I'm above partying and drinking... I had three Heinekens on the way down. But I came to see Deep Purple and I would not have been anywhere near the place otherwise. We were even late and I could hear Ted from the parking lot. At this time the parking lots were still full of people parting and could care less about Ted... So I said forget this I'm getting out of here quick and paying to park elsewhere...
We are running to catch Ted and did see his last number with the arrow. He looked and sounded great, by far the loudest of all three bands. Then Purple comes on, we were 9th row center stage and had a clear view of Purple... The band look very fresh and Ian Gillan looked especially good, barefoot of course... A lot of Purple people there... I ran into a friend who also went to the Boston show and said there were way more people in Hartford than Boston to see Purple. Make no mistake this was a LS crowd.
Purple was flawless of course and "Fools" by far was the best part of the show for me. I could here those deep cuts all night... My only complaint is that Purple could not be Purple due to time restraints, no solos, and no improvisations, and only 10 songs, but I'll take it... They almost brought me to tears just because of who they are and what they have done and how much they mean to me... I was sad to see them leave the stage...
Well, I wanted to leave but my lovely wife insisted to stay for Skynryd, so my thoughts on LS... First, the stage was very Hollywood with trees, no amps in sight, two chick singers on a platform with a big confederate flag behind them. It looked very plastic, corporate and fake. It reminded me of the Beach Boys or Rolling Stones and probably Aerosmith... Old bands that become plastic and very Hollywood. Contrast that to Purple who is the only old band that I can think of who approaches a live show the same way they did 30 years ago. Anyways, I thought LS sounded perfect. Their sound mix was so much better than Purple's. LS drummer (from the Damn Yankees) was awesome and full of energy. I did get tired of Johnny Van Zant quickly. Every other word was f-this and f-that, plus he must have said "Hartford, Connecticut" about a million times which was phoney. LS just seemed to be what the Beach Boys turned into with the Jimmy Buffet fans - very commercial and very phoney, but they did sound very good even for dead people.
Purple still rules the live stage just like they have for the past 30 years. No one has or will ever come close. God Bless Deep Purple.
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