Review
 
Explosive stuff from
the 'gods of rock' 

Deep Purple
Live Concert
Palace Grounds
Bangalore
April 1 2001


You could feel Deep Purple's compressed energy explode in your gut at Bangalore, the band's only stopover in India  

A guitar arpeggio from an Animals classic, a snatch from an Elvis ballad, an organ-and-lead guitar jugalbandi, a missing drumstick, a female Turkish dancer imitation... 

That was just Deep Purple having a bit of fun on All Fools Day in Bangalore. And never mind the occasion, this is a band that clearly believes in having a rollicking time even as it dished out some serious hard rock to its audience. 

Enraptured fans on the sprawling Bangalore Palace grounds were all steamed up after two hours of fervour and pace. There was internal combustion on stage -- compressed energy that exploded in your gut as you sweltered under an overcast summer sky.

Ian Gillan did a sort of test run -- a preliminary scream -- and boy, was he still in form! Then they were off, hardly pausing for breath as they played numbers from most of their albums: Shades of Deep Purple, Deep Purple in Rock, Machine Head, Fireball, Who Do We Think We Are, Perfect Strangers, and Purpendicular. Could you ask for more?

Yes you could. And you'd get the finest Hammond organist in the world playing a classical piano piece, and near-perfect vocals belted out by the best ageing screamer in the business. A technical glitch dampened Jon Lord's organ during his crucial interlude in Fools and Steve Morse quickly filled in with his dazzling lead. Morse with his lightning-swift fingering made you forget that Ritchie Blackmore once seemed irreplaceable.

The concert included a unique version of Speed King, which featured a "conversation" (like the sawal-jawab in Hindustani classical music) between Lord and Morse first, and then between Morse and Gillan. A glorious drums solo followed, from Ian Paice who finally had one of his drumsticks playfully snatched away by Gillan but kept going right on with a single stick! Morse indulged in a spot of mischief too when he earlier played an arpeggio from (The Animals') House of the Rising Sun and the opening bars of (The Beatles') Day Tripper.

Bass player Roger Glover's hard-driving rhythm kept heads shaking and feet stamping wildly throughout, especially in classics such as Black Night and Smoke on the Water. Gillan wisely didn't attempt to stretch his vocal limits (the man's in his fifties, for god's sake) in Sometimes I feel Like Screaming and Highway Star but he handled Mary Long and When a Blind Man Cries pretty smoothly.

"Beautiful", said Gillan to the audience while bidding Bangalore adieu. "I'm getting such good vibes from you." He swore the group would be back soon. Real soon, in fact, for they had to reappear a few seconds later to play Highway Star and Hush.

Gillan must have said "Superb" about 15 times during the concert. He meant the audience. It could just as well have described the performance last night.

C K Meena



Write to the author

Write to the editor