Deep Purple / Rage 1998-06-17

The Setlist remains the Same - Deep Purple live in Karlsruhe

First of all a big “Hi” to the internet people I met before and after the show… ‘hope to see you all again soon!

The venue was a small hall in Karlsruhe (about 4000 people), which offered a poor sound and really two (TWO!) small doors to let the crowd in…

Opener were German metal band Rage together with a “chamber version” of the Lingua Mortis Orchestra - which featured only 3 of normally 22 people. They played a good show with only two problems:

• the orchestra-people were way too low in the mix

• the setlist - I really don’t understand why they only played songs out of their actual CD “XIII” and a cover of Rolling Stones “Paint It Black”

Purple entered the stage at about 21:20 and played for less than two hours. The band was in a fine shape, especially Big I sounded better than on last tour… A disappointing fact was the setlist: where were the surprises that make a concert exciting? Instead of keeping “Into The Fire” in the setlist (only played once in Germany) and digging out some never-played-live songs, they re-introduced live standards like “Strange Kind Of Woman” and kept songs like “Woman From Tokyo” or “Speed King”.

To sum up: it was a bit like a movie featuring some great actors - but with a script you always have the feeling you know what will happen during the next 5 minutes…

Deep Purple live in Karlsruhe 1998-06-17

Just coming back from the show in Karlsruhe….

Opener were German metal band Rage together with a “chamber version” of the Lingua Mortis orchestra (only 3 people of normally 22). Bad thing was these people were way too low in the mix and Rage played only songs from their actual CD “XIII” and the Rolling Stones cover “Paint It Black”…

Purple entered the stage at about 21:20 and played for less than two hours. The band was in a fine shape, especially Big I sounded better than on last tour…

A disappointing fact was the setlist: where were the promised surprises? Instead of keeping “Into The Fire” in the setlist (only played once in Germany) and digging out some never-played-live songs, they re-introduced live standards like “Strange Kind Of Woman” and kept sogs like “Woman From Tokyo”.

To sum up: it was a bit like a movie featuring some great actors but with a script you always have the feeling you know what will happen in the next 5 minutes…