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The set list was as follows:
• G.Bizet. Intro from "Carmen" opera
• G.Gershwin. "Rhapsody In Blue " for piano & orchestra
• E.Elgar. "Popmp & Circumstance"
• Black Night
• Highway Star
• Woman from Tokyo
• Perfect Strangers
• M.Mussorgsky. "Baba Yaga" & "The Great Gate of Kiev" (Maurice Ravel's arrangement)
• Strange Kind of Woman
• When a Blind Man Cries
• Ted the Machanic
• Fireball
• Smoke On The Water
• Black Night (encore)
Orchestra director: Friedmann Riehle
Piano solist: Haralambos Aggelopoulos
Drums: Frantisek Honig
Electric Bass: Tomas Zahradnicky
 A very interesting & inspiring music combination, with a different perspective. The performance was great all around, and the result was marvelous. I didn't expect that the Purple songs would sound so good without the high voltage marshall amplification!
Ian Gillan performed with a very high respect to the symphonic / classical character of the concert (meaning screams only when necessary!) and was always positioned beside the conductor to receive the signal to sing! (Following a mistake in "Perfect Strangers" where he missed his intro point for the vocals, resulting in the first two or three lines not being heard, he apologised at the song's conclusion).
 In my opinion, the concert highlight was "When a Blind Man Cries", where Ian's performance hit a real peak.
The concert was superb throughout, and the crowd were certainly enthused. The evening was a musical experiment, and should be judged that way (some people didn't realise that there was going to be an orchestra involved!)
I estimate that there were 4,500-5,000 people. It would have been more if Robert Plant hadn't been playing the same city, the same day, and even the same hour a few kilometers away (but that's a problem of the concerts' agents, who never thought that these two hard rock monsters share, more or less, the same audience).
review, photo & ticket scan:
Nikos Mantzos
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