DPAS LIVE REVIEW

Stadionsporthalle, Hannover
November 12th 2003

After having seen the show in Dusseldorf 10 days ago I wanted more Bananas! So my son Jeffrey (11) and I went to Hannover, around a 400k trip from home.

Deep Purple opened with Highway Star, always a nice song to warm-up. The band played very well throughout the show, and the fun they share on stage is so good to see. Examples: Ian Gillan and Steve Morse shaking hands after a solo, Ian Gillan's jokey rapport with the audience, and the fact that he was even posing onstage for my son's camera, as did Roger Glover!

The best of the older songs for me were Lazy, The Well Dressed Guitar and Hush, which featured some marvelous keyboard playing from Don Airey. Highlight of the new songs was House Of Pain, I really rate this song, what a rhythm! Haunted was skipped and replaced with Doing It Tonight. Altough it is a nice song to sing along with in the car, on stage it doesn´t fit in (to me anyway). I would have prefered Sun Goes Down or Razzle Dazzle.

SET LIST
Highway Star / Strange Kind Of Woman / Silver Tongue / Knocking At Your Back Door / House of Pain / Lazy / Bananas / Contact Lost / Doing It Tonight / Space Truckin' / I Got Your Number / The Well Dressed Guitar / Don's solo ~ Perfect Strangers /
Smoke On The Water / Hush ~
with Hit The Road Jack / Black Night

Ian Paice slotted short drum solos into some songs, and he played (just like always), as if this was his last show_ unbelievable!!! Ian Gillan was very relaxed and just before the encores he announced "before the rest of the guys come back, I will give a tambourine solo" and indeed one touch later the band was back and they kicked into Hush, cutting the tambourine solo short! Steve Morse played very well, sensationally in The Well Dressed Guitar and Space Truckin´. Roger Glover is, to me, simply the best, out of this world. Don Airey, standing next to Ian Paice, was out of sight from where we stood, but did a perfect job: reeling off a great solo spot and in general making the Purple sound complete.

My son was very happy with the five plecs he collected (good grief, did he buy a plectrum magnet from the merchandise stall?) and he even gave two of them away to a girl and to another dad who brought along his son. He hopes they'lll enjoy them.

review: Peter and Jeffrey Rossen


deep purple 2003 reviews