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Deep Purple
What can I say about Deep Purple that hasn’t already been said? The legends that are Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Ian Paice, Steve Morse and Don Airey brought their ‘Songs That Built Rock’ tour to Birmingham complete with a 38 piece orchestra. With such a huge back catalogue of tunes to choose from, it must have been a hard choice when deciding the tour set list. However, we were not to be disappointed one bit.
With an all seated audience and the orchestra playing the intro, you could be forgiven for thinking we were at a full-on classical gig. I’m not a fan of seated rock gigs as we all know it changes the dynamic of the night, but Deep Purple soon exploded on stage with ‘Highway Star’ and reminded us where we were. With a band history of over forty years and a seemingly endless change of line ups along the way, Deep Purple showed no signs of wavering on delivering a blistering performance from start to finish. The unmistakeable vocals of Ian Gillan powered through the classics such as ‘Strange Kind of Woman’, ‘Woman From Tokyo’, ‘Perfect Strangers’ and the timeless ‘Smoke on the Water’.
Moving through hit after hit, the 38 piece orchestra accompanied and added an unusual angle to the night. However, this did not play down the power of the performance that was delivered by Deep Purple. This was no unplugged set! Instrumental solos are always a firm favourite at any gig and tonight was not going to be any different. Don Airey’s prog-tastic keyboard skills, Ian Paice’s master drumming, Roger Glover’s pounding bass and Steve Morse’s screaming guitar were all put through their paces. Even conductor Stephen Bentley-Klein found time for a short violin solo. ‘Hush’ and ‘Black Night’ brought the audience to its feet for a fantastic encore. At last they found the excuse to stand up and properly rock out!
http://www.deeppurple.com/
Full picture set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/magpie967/sets/72157628262666799/
Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick hit the stage in support of Deep Purple and started the night’s proceedings. Despite being one of the most known bands on the planet, millions of albums sold to date and also being in their 4th decade of existence, I must confess to only knowing the two iconic songs that are ‘I Want You to Want Me’ and ‘Surrender’. However, I did not let that detract from the fact that Robin Zander on lead vocals, Rick Nielsen on lead guitar, bassist Tom Petersson and touring drummer Daxx Nielsen were in town to entertain.
 Even in the shorter time given to the support, Cheap Trick still found time to squeeze in enough of their pop rock repertoire to keep everyone happy, including their tribute to the Beatles, ‘Magical Mystery Tour’. Rick Nielsen must have thrown the most amount of guitar picks towards the crowd that I have ever seen. Whilst in the photo pit, a handful seemed to fly by every couple of minutes. Lots of happy souvenir hunters that night!
http://www.cheaptrick.com/
Full picture set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/magpie967/sets/72157628262251553/
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