Turin Review
This is a review of the saturday night show in Turin, Italy, during the Monsters of Rock festival.
The band started playing at 23.00, and the show ended up at about 0.40.
The songlist (trying to remember, maybe they're in the wrong order, sorry):
Hush
Bloodsucker
Strange Kind of Woman
Almost Human
Pictures of Home
Ted the Mechanic
Fingers to the Bone
Watching the Sky
Seventh Heaven
Smoke on the Water
Lazy
Speed King
Encores:
Black Night
Highway Star
This has been the best show I've ever seen (and I've been to about fifty/sixty different concerts here in Italy), and Deep Purple enjoyed very much playing.
Openers for the show were Dream Theater, (just as the upcoming Purple US tour), and they played very well, but only a part of the audience were really listening to that (maybe they were tired, after 9 hours of the show).
But as the first note of Hush rang out, we were shocked: a band that was playing so well, enjoying themselves and the audience is a rare happening to see...
Ian Gillan sang incredibly well and took high adventures into Bloodsucker: it seems 30 years have never passed, the voice is so powerful and so high that the building seem to crack. In 3 times I've seen Purple live, this time was the best for Big Ian. Just to mention the duet with Morse, amazing...
Roger Glover smiled all night and played very well and tight with Little Ian, laying the base for evry song, and it showed great results in Almost Human, Pictures of Home and Fingers to the Bone; Roger has evolved, and he plays better now than in Mark II.
Jon Lord, as usual, played incredible duets with Morse, with great speed and without messing a note (a great solo introducing Lazy, just as the Made in Japan version). They even shaked their hands after the Speed King solo section...
Steve Morse doesn't need any comment for a simple reason: I respect every people out there saying "I am waiting to see Purple with Ritchie", "The true Purple is the Mark II", etc etc; this band has returned playing great music only with Morse, and Purpendicular and Abandon are two GREAT albums, where you can listen and play from the first to the last song; I don't remember such an album from Ritchie from Perfect Strangers, and we are talking about 15 years ago...
Technically speaking, he is a God player, and he is by far better than Ritchie: incredible was his solo (it remembered me the Cruise Control solo of the Dregs live album, take a listen before going to the show), incredible were his duets with Jon (Almost Human, Speed King, Strange Kind of Woman); I must say that during the Festival Joe Satriani performed for about an hour, and Steve outperformed him with two songs and a thousand smiles.
Little Ian has always been one of my favorite drum players during the seventies, less in the eighties; now he has come back to his roots, playing like a gun machine and doing a great solo (better than the Live at the Olympia solo) during Speed King.
Not to mention this was a band playing, not 5 great musicians not looking at each other (maybe because of Ritchie? Judge by yourself) as in TBRO tour.
I only missed two songs: Perfect Strangers and Hey Cisco, but the new material is so good that I'm wondering when Purple will come back in Italy.
Just go to the show and long live Deep Purple!!
[ reviews | the highway star ]