Review of Hamburg
I was really late for the concert (just 10 min prior to the start of DP), so I don't know if there were any other bands.
Due to my late arrival I only managed to get a place 15-20 meters on the left side of stage, at least I had a good view on Roger and Paicey.
Purple started around 21:10, the concert lasted for two hours.
The mix was IMHO o.k., maybe a little bit heavy on the bass, but this could also come from my position on the left side (does anyone know how much the position in the audience influences your impression of the sound??). And of course Steve hadn't any problems to make himself heard :-)
Like has been mentioned before is the lightshow not very big, but imho put to good use (Spot on IP at the start of the songs, spots for the solos, etc.).
The clothes (for Svante :-):
Steve: Black trousers, and a really colourful T-Shirt
Gillan: Black trousers, black T-Shirt
Roger: Black Trousers, darkgrey T-Shirt (and Bandana or whatever its called)
Paice: B&W T-Shirt (and also something wrapped around his head, looked good)
Jon: black/black
The stage-setup (view from the audience) same as noted before.
The setlist: The same as Bocholt and the other concerts, but no second encore and no keyboard-solo from Jon
Negatives: the often mentioned throwing of full beer cups at Steve and Jon (I won't comment on this.........I don't want to offend anyone with rude language)
So much for what happened, now to the more subjective part:
Again a better than good show.
This time Jon was in a much better shape, he was full of energy (til the mentioned incident with the throwing), you could see him physically leaning into his playing and I expected him every minute to start throwing his Hammond around.
Ian Paice was IMHO also in a better mood, very powerful playing and his solo, although much to short, was a firework. Very strong intros to the songs
Gillan was more restrained than Bocholt, not much screams, it looked like if he had some problems, especially at the guitar-voice interacting he wasn't at his best.
Roger was good as ever.
Steve keeped his brilliant form.
Although this time Gillan was (IMHO) not at his best, I liked the band even more than in Bocholt. The feeling of energy is there, they really are on.
Some comments on the songs:
I wasn't thinking to highly of /-\, imho it is a good album, but nothing to lose your sleep about.
Since DP has always been a live band, I went to the shows for enjoying the old songs and curious about what they would do with the new material.
The new songs work (mostly) great onstage, the band fills them with life ("inside every good DP-studioalbum is a good live-album waiting to come out" - me) and I really enjoy them.
So go out and catch them on this tour, imho they sound and play better than on LATO (which I think wasn't exactly bad ;-))
Now for the (inevitable) "what they should do in the next shows" :-)
One thing I'm missing is a really slow song in the set, like WABMC has been on the last tour, Watching the sky is great, but hasn't the same emotional feeling for me.
And of course I know that SOTW is a highlight of the show, but I have this song heard that many times, I could do without it, although I know that there are many good reasons to keep it on the setlist. I also have the impression, that the band themselves are a little bit fed up with it, imho there was not much fire this time.
Well, that should be enough for now.
Just one thing, since "critical reviews" are in fashion right now in this newsgroup.
I'm a really big fan of MkII and I think, that DP was at the peak of their music from 70-72 (your mileage may variage).
But what I don't get is this stubborn repeating of "if TMIB is back, everything will be fine" and "DP should quit, because there is no more magic"
Imho MkII died a natural death, when IG and RG left the band (and maybe sometime before, when the problems between some bandmembers came to the surface, WDWTWA isn't exactly my favourite album). That was when *one* kind of magic left (more good stuff were to follow) and not on this infamous day in 1993.
And MkII stayed dead, the reunion 1984 didn't bring it back.
But DP is alive again and this is fine by me.
That's of course imho and just my 2 cents.
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