[Heeplist] Deep Purple in Seattle (with Heep content)

[Jay Pearson]

Hi y'all!

Been a long time since I've posted, it's been very busy at work, and my inbox is now at more than 1500 unread emails! 

Last night Deep Purple played near Seattle and my wife had bought me tickets as a birthday present. We hadn't seen them since the Perfect Strangers tour. Nearly sold-out crowd at a beautiful outdoor amphitheatre at one of the local casinos that I'd not been to before. Not a bad seat in the place, but my wife had made sure we were up close enough to really see them play. Most of the crowd were 50s-60s something, but there were a surprising number of younger (20/30 somethings) at the show who were singing along.

Their musicianship, especially Don Airey, is jaw-droppingly good! They mixed up their approaches to how they played many of the old songs (mainly in the rhythm). I also can't believe that Ian Paice can still play with the energy of a 20-year-old. I know he's in his late 60s, but he must be part machine! They've gone back to playing The Mule with a full 5-minute solo. My wife still says that Neal Peart is the best rock drummer ever, but agreed that Paicey is right up there.

Best part for me was when they played Hard Lovin' Man, which I don't think I've ever heard live before, and they played all 7+ minutes of it. Second best part was hearing them do Vincent Price. They also did Uncommon Man and Hell To Pay from the new album. Hell To Pay went over extremely well.

The encore was the longest I've ever seen, with a 7-8 minute version of Hush, a Glover bass solo, and a 7-8 minute version of Black Night. Lots and lots of excellent jamming on most of the songs.

Worst part was they did both Contact Lost and Well-Dressed Guitar as well as an extended Don Airey solo. That's way too many instrumental songs. I would've rather had heard another song from Now What.

I wore my Uriah Heep 2001 tour t-shirt. Wow, did I get a lot of compliments!! My wife was astonished how many fist pumps and high fives I got. I was more astonished at how many people are not only aware that Heep is still around, but that they have a new album, own Outsider, and love it. No one that I talked to about Outsider had anything negative to say about it, and several people raved about Russel!! This was the most people I talked to face-to-face about Heep since that 2001 show!


Jay
np - Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Somewhere in Afrika