DEEP PURPLE LIVE!!!!
July 11th, Garmisch-Partenkirchen (Funkenflug Open Air)
This concert was an Open Air Festival, so, unfortunately, the opening acts (Bellibone + Banana Fishbones) played quite long. There even seemed to be fans who just came for the Banana Fishbones. During their gigs, it was raining like hell, so in spite of my anorak, I got quite wet. Deep Purple entered the stage just half an hour after the Bananas' appearance, when it was still light. and the 2800 fans were raging.
Gillan (with short hair, as everybody should know by now) wore Roger's bass, but gave it back after half a minute. They started with the chorus of "Boys Are Back In Town", which led into "Pictures Of Home". Already here, you could see, that they were in a very good mood! Some people next to me (in the first row ;-)) wanted to do some photographs but were hindered by the security people. So Gillan tried to force them to the side, sitting down on the edge of the stage and posing for the photographers.
Short after that, the securities wanted to hinder some photographers again. So Gillan was climbing down the stage(!), went to one of the fans, took his camera and made some pictures of his bandmates playing. After entering the stage again, he told one of his roadies, that the securities should leave, and that's what they did for the whole concert.
Setlist was the same as usual (with Black Night in the encore), but, as I mentioned above, they played really good. It was my third Deep Purple concert (1 Purpendicular, one Abandon and this one) and last night topped the first two easily. Most songs were very extended, such as "Speed King", which lasted for more than twenty minutes. There were a lot of gimmicks such as Steve Morse's Rock Medley ("Paint It Black", "Purple Haze", some Led Zeppelin song (not "Whole Lotta Love")), Stevie and Roger, who seem to be good friends, banging their heads synchronically on "Highway Star", or Jon Lord, who was in very good shape, too, watching carefully Stevie's solos in their duel in "Speed Kin"g, just to reproduce them almost exactly. Roger Glover had a solo spot and played something funky/souly.
Ian Gillan was singing with very few mistakes, he was better than in '96 or '98. Towards the end of the show, Gillan thanked the audience for waiting so long in the rain.
The audience loved all of their songs and even the newer ones were accepted. (As Ian said on the intro of Woman From Tokyo: "They were all new once, too").
All in all: the best concert I've ever seen, I hope they stay together for a long time.
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