DPAS LIVE REVIEW

Don Airey & Friends
South Shields Amphitheatre
June 4th 2005

South Shields Amphitheatre, South Tyneside, England. Saturday, June 4th was the date of the "Don Airey and Friends" show. And a very enjoyable time it was too. As well as Don on keyboards there was his brother, a professional session musician, on guitar. Other than the vocalist being from East Grinstead and a decent singer (very much in the Paul Rogers, David Coverdale vein), I can't identify any of the other musicians.

Even though Don and his brother are from Sunderland (just a matter of minutes away) it was still quite strange to be watching a member of Deep Purple performing a free, outdoor show on the shores of the North Sea. The amphitheatre is, as the name suggests, an out-door Roman-style auditorium built on the town's Sandhaven beach. The concerts are given, with no charge to the public, throughout the month of June. Bands appearing have included Bad Manners, The Animals and Saxon amongst others.

The band relied quite heavily on the Rainbow back catalogue. Opening with a song covered on the first album, "Black Sheep of the Family", we are immediately reminded that Don is in Deep Purple now. His swirling Jon Lord style Hammond lifted the clouds on what had, until now, been a rather dull day. "Since You Been Gone", "All Night Long" and "Bad Girl" (introduced as an 'obscure B- side') were performed. "Spotlight Kid", "Love's No Friend" (very good Graham Bonnet impersonation) and "Difficult to Cure" (including a guitar/keyboard rendition of J.S.Bachs Brandenburg Concerto No.4 and keyboard solo) were mixed with a bit of Free and Whitesnake. A very 'Paul Rogers' vocal on "Can't get Enough of your Love" and "Is This Love" (very believable Coverdale) helped display how similar the two frontmen sound.

Don reminisced about Colleseum II days and his collaborating with Gary Moore on the composition of their next tune. "Parisienne Walkways" was handled as an instrumental with some excellent guitar work. Unfortunately I don't recall the exact set list, or the order that the songs were played in. I'm sure that I've omitted some of the set from my list because they played for about an hour... just a pity that I didn't take a pen, or even a tape recorder.

The emergence of the sun for the final song was greeted with an impromptu version of "The Sun Has Got His Hat On". We were treated to just the one Purple song. A rocking version of "Black Night" closed the show. A very enjoyable evening's entertainment. Many thanks to Don for remaining so "down to earth" and not letting his position in the world of music go to his head.

review: Barry Albertson, photo: Trev Scott