Deep Purple, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Dream Theater
Clarkston, MI August 15, 1998
After the great show in Canandaigua, my friend Mary and I went out sightseeing to Niagara Falls. We walked into Canada to hit the Hard Rock Café, and here we met two people from Clarkston MI, where Purple were playing that night. We had no intention of hitting the show, it was over four hours away, making it at least a 13 hour drive home. But the total coincidence of meeting these people who gave us directions--we took it as a sign that we HAD to see the show! At 4:30 PM, we were running back to NY to get our car to drive to Michigan!
We arrived at the Pine Knob Theater around 9:15, just before Purple hit the stage! By the time we got tickets and got to our seats, it was actually Strange Kind of Woman, but we were happy! It was a great show, and Ian sounded in good shape. It think the Clarkston audience was the largest I'd see so far on the tour. We were in the second to last row, and the lawn looked very full, with everyone being really into it.
The band added Any Fule Kno That back into the set, and it was in this song that someone in the audience got up and did the "I'm not worthy" bow to Ian Paice. Charlie Lewis [DP stage manager - Ed.] got the guy and helped him back into the front row, and it was here that something went wrong, Unable to see, I was under the impression that the guy was giving Charlie a hard time and Ian hit the fan on the head with the microphone. Other reports said it was the security guard. I couldn't really tell. Either way, Ian told whoever to "Get a hold of yourself" and that "There's ONE in every crowd." It didn't take away from the show, as a matter of fact, the sound of Ian's Mic on someone's head was pretty funny!
All and all, a great show, and the last on the tour for us. It was an unexpected treat to catch one more, we hadn't planned on it at all. It was a looong drive home!
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