An evening with Deep Purple? Well, after having seen last year's concert in the Heineken Music Hall, I wasn't too enthusiastic to hit the road and watch the legend of hard rock again.
Now in the US concerts featuring two big names are no exception and in Germany the agents tend to forge some strange alliances like for instance Kansas as support act for Status Quo.
On this occasion I heard Marillion would be the support act for Deep Purple, there was no hesitation at all because it was some time ago I had seen these forefathers of neo-prog.
So, accompanied by a good friend of mine we drove off to Essen, just over a 100 km from where I live.
Of course it was cold and raining, but we managed to get into the impressive building fairly easily.
No problem to collect my photo pass (thanks a lot KAT!) and the wait for the first performance could begin.
Marillion
Luckily right on time, Marillion came on stage, Hogarth dressed and moving like an old man, and they opened with The Invisible Man.
The hall was nicely filled up with fans of both bands, because there were a lot of Marillion T-shirts in the crowd as well.
The band played tight, the theatrical performance of "H" as always being very emotional and catchy.
It's a blessing for Marillion they have such a incredible front man because apart from Pete Trevawas, who was on the move frequently,
there's not a whole lot to see: Kelly, Mosley and Rothery seem to be glued to their designated spots and besides one smile by Kelly I haven't seen any changes in their facial expression at all.
Hogarth had some minor difficulties with the highest notes but altogether his performance was outstanding.
Oldies like King and Easter sounded really terrific and being a support act for a band like Deep Purple, they just had to play their hits Hooks In You and Kayleigh.
In spite of having played over an hour, which I think is quite long for a support act, the band returned for an encore: Neverland.
The superb sound quality and a front man giving his very best made this performance to a highly memorable one and I'm sure the band must have been proud of those 75 minutes of top-entertainment.
Their fans were quite thankful and probably they gained a few new ones as well.
Slideshow Marillion
Setlist Marillion
The Invisible Man
King
Easter
The Great Escape
Cover My Eyes
Slàinte Mhath
Hooks In You
Kayleigh
Neverland
Deep Purple
Then a break because the big stage had to be rebuilt for Deep Purple, celebrating well over 40 years in rock-music.
Hogarth had warned the fans to protect their ears because Purple would surely play loud.
He was absolutely right but yet again there was a perfect balance between the instruments, the vocals were quite okay so to my utmost satisfaction again a superb sound quality and nice lighting.
For ages Highway Star has been the opener for each Purple concert and this evening was no exception.
Gillan, singing remarkably well, refrained from screaming when thanking the crowd for their support, which seemed a sensible idea.
I really loved hearing Hard Lovin'Man again, 40 years after the recording of this song on what in my mind is one of the groundbreaking albums in rock-history: Deep Purple In Rock.
Between golden oldies like Maybe I'm A Leo from the album Machine Head and the hit Strange Kind Of Woman there were two songs from the new millennium:
Rapture Of The Deep from the homonymous album and Silver Tongue and also Contact Lost from the Bananas album.
An unexpected surprise, though they played the song many times before, was the inclusion of the title track of the second studio album with Ian Gillan in the line up: Fireball.
After the melancholic bluesy When A Blind Man Cries Gillan announced the ultimate X-mas present 'to be cherished and unwrapped with great care':
Steve Morse and his solo-spot with The Well Dressed Guitar.
Then, with the exception of Almost Human from the Abandon album, it was back to the seventies again with Lazy, No One Came, Space Truckin' and the inevitable Smoke On The Water.
The only song from the eighties was also their best: Perfect Strangers.
If I had thought DP would split within one and a half hours I was so wrong!
The band played very well indeed and kept on doing so for over 1 3/4 hours, no wasted time with long introductions or anything like that, just music, good music!
The encores were predictable but nonetheless very welcome: both Hush and Black Night are old favorites of mine too and it's always nice to hear them once again.
A special compliment for Don Airey: I've seen numerous Purple gigs and DVD's but for me personally this was the first time I didn't miss Jon Lord.
Not only because Don played a terrific solo, but he was in a very good mood obviously and played extremely well throughout the whole show with very tasteful,
daring and challenging duets with guitar god Steve Morse.
I admit that last year I really thought Deep Purple were on their way to a downfall but this night proved definitely otherwise:
the guys still rock, still know how to move their fans and are still able to fill halls of 1500+ people, which is amazingly good considering the financial crisis.
Go Purple go, up to your 45th anniversary!
Slideshow Deep Purple
Setlist Deep Purple
Highway Star
Hard Lovin Man
Maybe I'm A Leo
Strange Kind Of Woman
Rapture Of The Deep
Fireball
Silver Tongue
Contact Lost
When A Blind Man Cries
The Well Dressed Guitar
Almost Human
Lazy
No One Came
Keyboard solo
Perfect Strangers
Space Truckin'
Smoke On The Water
Luckily right on time, Marillion came on stage, Hogarth dressed and moving like an old man, and they opened with The Invisible Man.
The hall was nicely filled up with fans of both bands, because there were a lot of Marillion T-shirts in the crowd as well.
The band played tight, the theatrical performance of "H" as always being very emotional and catchy.
