Als anspruchsvollen Speed-Metal bezeichnen Solution Suicide ihren Stil. Nun ja, vielleicht war er für mich zu anspruchsvoll. Zwar erkannte man an so ziemlich jeder Ecke die Bemühungen um Abwechslung, jedoch tat man des Öfteren des Guten etwas zu viel, was die Songs doch etwas zu unübersichtlich und unstrukturiert wirken ließ, zumal auch der Gesang an manchen Stellen nicht so recht zu Rest der Musik zu passen schien. Da die Band allerdings (laut Info) für die Zukunft aber auch mal plant, etwas langsamere Songs zu schreiben, bleibt eigentlich nur zu hoffen, daß sie an ihren guten Ansätzen noch werkeln und mehr Struktur in ihre Songs bringen. Fünf Songs mit ca. 25 Minuten Spielzeit für 10DM (plus 2 DM für Porto und Verpackung) bei: Adresse.

This was the third time for me to see Deep Purple in 1998. After the weak performance in Karlsruhe and a brilliant show in Hanau (anyone else waiting for “Another Purple Rose Of Hanau”??) I was again hoping to see a great gig - although the venue, a big hall originally build for trade fairs, didn’t promise the best rock’n’roll feeling.

As opener, the German metal band Sinner were chosen. I’ve known them by name for many years now, but this was the first time, I heard some of their music. And although some people don’t seem to be too happy seeing metal bands opening for Purple (Hi, Svante :) me and a big part of the audience seemed to enjoy their show very much.

Talking about the audidence: anybody else recognized the average age of the audience seems to get younger and younger from year to year? I remember when seeing Purple back in 1993 I felt like one of the few younger people standing there - but in Trier I saw a lot of people who for sure were younger than myself.

At about 21:00 the lights were turned off and Deep Purple entered the stage starting with “Ted The Mechanic”. Although the sound wasn’t as good in Hanau, the show and the feeling in the audience seemed to be a bit more enthusiastic (if this is possible…). The band was showing such a fun being on stage - it was just unbelievable, and also Roger Glover, who once said he’s always happy when his solo-parts are over had several great solo-spots during the gig. Total winner of the evening was Steve Morse who played a just unbelievable solo which left me standing there with closed eyes, flying in a Purple dream.

I know there are always people interested in a setlist - here it is. I don’t guarantee it’s 100% correct - as I was there to enjoy the music and summed it up after the gig. Playing time about 2 hours.

• Ted The Mechanic
• Strange Kind Of Woman
• Bloodsucker
• Pictures Of Home
• Almost Human
• Watching The Sky
• Woman From Tokyo
• Fingers To The Bone
• Any Fule Kno That
• Smoke On The Water
• Lazy
• Perfect Strangers
• Speed King

Encores

• Black Night
• Highway Star

See you - hopefully soon on tour again.

Seeing the shows in Luxemburg, Halle and München, here are some few notes I took afterwards… I hope you enjoy!

Audience I

While in Luxemburg the audience seemed to be typical orchestral music listeners (most with subscriptions to go to such shows), the audiences were quite different in Halle and München. In Halle most people seemed to be rock music fans (at least what you could tell from their clothing) while in München the audience was mixed.

Audience II

In Luxemburg the people just sat there enjoying the show and giving standing ovations at the end, while there was always some annoying background noise in Halle and especially in München. Also there weren’t too much autograph hunters in Luxemburg. In Halle some people stood at the front of the stage from the beginning of the encores until the end of the show waving with pencils, tickets etc just to get an autograph.

One person I will for sure never forget was this ruthless idiot, who was trying to get about 20 to 30 LPs signed by Jon in München. Sometimes I feel like screaming! Very funny was a guy in München wondering why the complete first part of the “Pictured Within”-show sounded that much like the album. Well, ok - he didn’t know the album at all - according to what he told me, he wasn’t able to find the album during the last 9 months :)

Venues

The venue in Luxemburg was the “Conservatoire De Musique”, a music school with a main concert hall built for orchestral concerts.

Halle was a variety theatre with two large balconys and a heaven consisting of lots of small lights. The Muffathalle in München seemed to be an old discarded factory building with all inner walls painted black.

Organization

Best organization is when you never see people organizing. Very very relaxed in Luxemburg. When we arrived, we found the conservatoire with doors wide open and had the chance to step in and listen to the rehearsals. Also not much security after the show - just a female sitting on a chair before the backstage entrance. - that was all… Also a very relaxed organizing in Halle, as there was also just one single security guy in front of the backstage door.

Very annoying in München. A lot of people behaving much more important than they really were. Security at all possible and impossible places - and one of them trying to throw out cello player Hagen Kuhr before the soundcheck :) That’s the way it shouldn’t be done…

Music & Sound

Music and sound was great all three evenings, although in Luxemburg “Unsquared Dance” was missing and they didn’t improvise as much as during the later shows. Some songs were played the first time in one part at showtime in Luxemburg, but as Sam Brown had forseen during the rehersals: “It will all work perfectly in the evening!”

Musicians

I had the chance to talk at least some few words to each of them. Most of them didn’t know more than “Smoke On The Water” from Jons “normal” job. They all enjoyed this tour and played brilliant. Too bad the tour was that short, it was extremly enjoyable to watch (and of cource hear) them grow from their first steps in Luxemburg to the final show in München.

Sam Brown

Brilliant. Excellent. Incredible. Weird.

Jon Lord

It was very interesting to see Jon acting in a different role, not as keyboarder of a rock band (his “other job”) but as host and musician in one person. It’s a shame he doesn’t take the microphone more often. I rarely heard that interesting and funny narrations during a show. And it was great to see how much he enjoyed doing his solo stuff and how much he enjoyed to play with the others.

Setlist

A great choice of songs, although a setlist can never be perfect for everyone. And so there was also something I hoped for - one or two songs from Sam Browns “43 minutes…” which would have fit perfectly into the set. A funny experience was that while in Luxemburg and München “Stop” was received with much applause, noone seemed to be familiar with this song in Halle - well, it was a hit in western world before the iron curtain came down.

Thanks

First of all thanks to Jon Lord for that album and tour. Also thanks to all other musicians, especially Sam Brown for being the way she is and Hagen Kuhr, who turned out to be a great guy. Also thanks to all people who sent in reviews and pictures from this tour.

Last but not least a big “HELLO” to all the people I met before and after the shows - hope to see you again soon.

On January 24, a new Deep Purple live CD will be released to public. But this time it’s not just the recording of a “normal” rock show - it’s the recording of Deep Purple celebrating the 30th anniversary of the original “Concerto For Group and Orchestra” performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London. And as you know - to get a stunning party, besides great music you also need to invite some good friends. So did Deep Purple…

Jon Lord - “Pictured Within”, “Wait A While”

The CD starts with the title-track of Jon Lords latest solo release “Pictured Within”, this time with Miller Anderson on vocals. I already had the chance to see this song performed live during Jons solo tour in 1999 with Dieter Müller on vocals. And although I was a bit sad about the fact Miller Anderson wasn’t on tour with Jon, I really won’t say this version is better. It’s now the original vocalist from the CD, it’s a bit different - that’s all.
Next song is “Wait A While”, besides the title track my favorite piece of music on “Pictured Within”. What can be said about Sam Brown that hasn’t already been said? I don’t know. She’s brilliant, stunning, fantastic. The song itself sounds a bit different than the well know versions - now with much more orchestra in the background than in the sparse, original instrumentation.

Roger Glover - “Sitting In A Dream”, “Love Is All”

The next two songs are the solo-performances of Deep Purples bass player Roger Glover. He presents two songs of his 1974 solo work “Butterfly Ball”, also featuring the original vocalist - this time it’s Ronnie James Dio.
In comparison to the original tracks, both songs sound a bit fresher and more compact than the original instrumentation, the background vocals and orchestration in “Sitting In A Dream” are just wonderful.

Ian Gillan - “Via Miami”, “That’s Why God Is Singing The Blues”

Ian Gillan starts with “Via Miami”, a song of the “Accidentally on Purpose” album he did with Roger Glover about ten years ago. As “AoP” is my favorite Deep Purple-spinoff-album, I was really glad to see this song being included in the setlist - especially in such a good and fresh version.
“That’s Why God Is Singing The Blues” follows in a “it should have sounded like this on the original recording”-version. Nothing more to say :)

Steve Morse Band - “Take It Off The Top”

Then starts the instrumental section with the two Dixie Dregs songs “Take It Off The Top” and “Night Meets Light”. I didn’t like the original version of “Take It Off The Top” too much, mostly because of the sound. But this take sounds fine to me and is also a bit more compact than the studio release.

On “Night Meets Light” I can’t comment anything, as this song was dropped off the CD release. Let’s hope it’s still on the video and DVD…

Ian Paice - “Wring That Neck”

The last song of the solo section is “Wing That Neck”, played in an interesting and unusual jazzy big band version. Seems Ian picked a Deep Purple song as he still hasn’t published a true solo album.

Deep Purple - “Concerto For Group And Orchestra”

The second CD starts with the “Concerto For Group And Orchestra”. Although I was looking forward to hear this one with mixed feelings, as I still belive that the best guitar work Ritche Blackmore ever done was on the original “Concerto”-recording.
It’s an interesting experience to have just two live recordings of a piece of music, recorded with a 30 year distance inbetween - especially with some parts of the “Concerto” being changed and/or rewritten. In can’t comment (and won’t comment) on the several changes of the “Concerto” itself, as I’m very familiar with the “old” version and only had a week to listen to the new one - but there’s one thing for sure: The London Symphony Orchestra plays much better than the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra which did - in comparison - a lousy job on the original recording.

Deep Purple - “Ted The Mechanic”, “Watching The Sky”, “Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming”, “Pictures Of Home”, “Smoke On The Water”

The last part of the concert is Deep Purple celebrating some of their own songs together with the orchestra. Although I like the versions of “Pictures Of Home” and “Watching the Sky” very much, my personal winner is “Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming”. Together with the orchestra the impossible comes true: this song sounds better than ever before. The set is concluded by “Smoke On The Water”, played together will all the friends who were performing during the earlier parts of the show.

The music on this compact disc is great - besides never heard versions of old classics (“Wring That Neck”), interesting solowork (“Pictured Within”) and new classics (“Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming”) it also offers a stunning performance of the “Concerto For Group and Orchestra”.
Sadly there are some technical details which make the CD a bit less than perfect: first of all, “Night Meets Light” is missing. Ok, there’s also a video-clip of the “Smoke On The Water” performance on CD1, but we will have this on the video and DVD release. Why leave out a song for this?

The running order of the songs is also messed up - “Pictures Of Home” is included as last song on CD1, right between “Wring That Neck” and the concerto. And finally, the complete concerto is just one single 50 minutes song. I would have prefered to see it split into the three original movements.

But all these are just stupid little details and nothing important - what leaves us with a fine 2CD of a brilliant show.

“Cashing In On Christmas, hear those cash bells ring” - keine Ahnung, ob sich David Coverdale in den letzten Wochen und Monaten ab und an Bad News angehört hat oder nicht, aber klingende Kassen könnten einer der Gründe gewesen sein, warum sich Mr. Coverdale dazu entschlossen hat, Whitesnake wiederzubeleben. Wobei: ob es bei der aktuellen Besetzung überhaupt gerechtfertigt ist, von einer Wiederbelebung zu sprechen oder nicht, darf diskutiert werden. Fakt ist allerdings, daß in erster Linie “David Coverdale = Whitesnake” und “Whitesnake = David Coverdale” bedeutet.

Bonfire

Doch wie so oft im Leben kam vor dem Vergnügen noch etwas anderes - in diesem Fall hatte der Herr den angereisten Pilgern Bonfire als wahrlich schwere Prüfung auferlegt. Die Musik der Herren aus Bayern ist ja gar nicht mal so schlecht (wenn auch etwas eintönig), aber jedesmal, wenn Claus Lessmann zu einer Ansage ausholt, fühlt man sich genötigt, ein Stoßgebet in Richtung Himmel loszuschicken: Es möge doch bitte, bitte, bitte, bitte die Mikroanlage ausfallen.

Irgendwann war der Set von Bonfire aber glücklicherweise zu Ende und quasi zur “Entschädigung” wurden die Halle während der Umbaupause mit einer “Greatest Hits” des Rock’n’Roll beschallt, in deren Verlauf man auch Herrn Coverdale bei seinem früheren Arbeitgeber Deep Purple mit “Burn” lauschen durfte. Gute Idee und nett zum Mitsingen!

Whitesnake

Schlußendlich betraten Whitesnake aber die Bühne und legten los - und schon die ersten Takte zeigten, daß die “cash bells”-Vermutung vielleicht gar nicht so falsch war. Ziemlich deutlich wurde auf der doch sehr kommerziell ausgerichteten “1987”-Schiene gefahren, statt den älteren, eher blueslastigen Tönen den Vorzug zu geben. David Coverdale (dessen Gesicht und vor allem Zähne inzwischen so echt aussehen wie das Hinterteil von Cher) präsentierte sich in bester Laune und war wie immer perfekt in seiner Rolle als Rockdiva. Zwischen den Songs gab’s A-capella-Häppchen, die auf Zuruf intoniert wurden - eine nette Idee, von der auch ruhig andere Bands mal Gebrauch machen könnten. Da machte es auch nichts, daß das Textende meist deutlich vor dem ursprünglichen Songende erreicht war.

Nicht so recht ins Bild passen wollte allerdings der Rest der Band, wirkten die Jungspunde doch mehr wie “Hired Guns” (was sie ja auch waren) denn als richtige Band - vor allem Doug Aldrich kann weder Moody noch Marsden und auch nicht Vandenberg ersetzen.

Ja iss’ denn heut’ schon Weihnachten?