"Lazy" gets the entire place going
Setlist:
1. "Woman From Tokyo"
2. "Ted The Mechanic"
3. "Lazy"
4. "Knocking At Your Back Door"
5. "Fools"
6. "Pictures Of Home"
7. "Perfect Strangers"
8. "When A Blind Man Cries"
9. "Smoke On The Water"
(Encore)
10. "Hush"
11. "Highway Star"
Another big venue - probably about the same capacity as Jones Beach? It's hard to tell, as the top/back sections have no seats but people sit or stand on the lawn. That seems to be a very popular area, so it's already getting full as I go into the theater area ("into" is not a correct word: the central part of it has a roof over it, but it's actually an open space) during Ted Nugent's set. The seating area below is already much more filled at this stage than JB last night. Nugent working up the same kind of wild audience reaction as yesterday's show, not just among the first 10-12 rows who are all standing up, jumping up and down or punching the air, but also from the lawn area right at the top.
My seat tonight is bang in the middle section - miles away from the stage, even further than my Sendai seat (the very last row in a much smaller venue) but at least they have a video screen above the stage here. And I can hear the sound properly - which turns out to be excellent! Ian Gillan's voice sounds much better than last night, smoother and less out of breath.
And the audience reaction is a lot, lot better tonight too. "Woman From Tokyo" manages to get the front 15-20 rows on their feet by the end of the number, as well as a lot of applause from the rest of the audience. "Ted The Mechanic" meets with a similarly enthusiastic reaction, but it's "Lazy" that really gets the entire place really going. JL's organ solo is absolutely fantastic, it's probably the best rendition of this number I've heard (...or do I always say that??), and he gets a lot of cheering from all corners of the theater, as well as people standing up and dancing... By this time, people who had been at the bar area have come back to their seats, so the whole place is pretty much full. (BTW, why does IG have to spoil the fun by introducing "Lazy" by its title, rather than just let JL get on with his solo and let the audience guess?)
The crowd remained enthusiastic throughout Purple's show. Even during the quiet, instrumental middle section of "Fools", there's a lot of whistling from everywhere. [Is this enthusiasm or impatience? Rasmus] After that, IG introduces "When A Blind Man Cries" (I look at the setlist from the night before and go: "???") but then he realises his mistake when JL starts playing the opening chord to "Perfect Strangers" and corrects himself... At the end of "When A Blind Man Cries" a large number of the audience in the middle and back sections stand up to cheer.
"Smoke On The Water" gets a deafening applause, with (I'd say) 80% of the whole venue standing up. SM's guitar parade consisted, again, of a variety of shorter quotes (sorry, I didn't write them all down & now I can't remember!) and went down extremely well with the crowd.
No need here to add how wild the whole place went during "Hush" and "Highway Star". Yes, the atmosphere was great tonight, IG kept thanking the audience (more than usual) and I heard someone say afterwards that everyone (in the band) was very happy with tonight's show.
[ reviews | the highway star ]