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| Ian Gillan and Steve Morse of Deep Purple |
February 12 2012 – Deep Purple rolled into Toronto’s fabled Massey Hall tonight for a sold out stop on their Smoke On The Nation tour. The guys decided that the best way to spend February 2012 is to trek across Canada to play 17 dates for their fans in the country. Tonight’s gig was the eighth date on the tour. The band started in 1968 and have released 18 albums in their long career. Arguably their most successful lineup was from 1969-1973 and 1984-1989 when the lineup consisted of vocalist Ian Gillan, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, bassist Roger Glover, keyboardist Jon Lord, and drummer Ian Paice. Tonight featured 3 of those 5 with Steve Morse having replaced Blackmore, and Don Airey having replaced Lord.
Here’s a game for you, what is the first thing you think of when I say Deep Purple….fast! I am certain you said Smoke On the Water, if there has ever been a career defining song for a band this is it (right up there with The Eagles and Hotel California). It’s not that Deep Purple don’t have a slew of hits to present in concert (they have sold 100 million albums worldwide after all) but the universal familiarity of that riff transcends the band and epitomizes the early 70’s hard rock sound. In fact Gibson.com named it the number 2 guitar riff of all time. The story behind that song is quite interesting. In December 1971 the band went to Montreux, Switzerland to record an album in a mobile studio outside a casino. The day they were supposed to start Frank Zappa was closing out the season for the casino with a concert in it. As the concert progressed a fan light two flares in the music hall of the casino and the whole casino burned to the ground that night. The band rushed off to an empty hotel further down the road and found an empty hallway to record their album. They finished it as the police were banging on the doors with roadies pushing the doors shut. Legendary real life rock exploits! Anyways, that album Machine Head (that Smoke On The Water originated from) was very well represented with 6 tracks from that album (and its deluxe reissue) being played tonight. In fact the band played all their hits in their deep catalogue and the only song that I wanted to have heard that wasn’t played was 1984’s Knockin’ On Your Back Door.
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| 2 of the 3 classic Mach II lineup |
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| Steve Morse of Deep Purple Guitar Solo |
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| Don Airey during his awesome solo |
Right about this time an ogre looking dude keeps running up to the front of the stage to twirl around and do his hippy dance. Security is on him within a heartbeat, and EVERYONE around me is cheering him on. It’s a total shame that venues are so uptight these days that a harmless guy isn’t permitted to dance freely. The main set ends with a 3 song combo of Perfect Strangers, Space Truckin‘ and Smoke On The Water. A brief encore followed and just like that at 10:22pm the show was over. Total show time 1:52.
Verdict: Deep Purple is still going strong and tonight’s show proved that. Excellent night out!
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| Ian Paice of Deep Purple |
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| Ian Gillan also sang for Black Sabbath after Dio |
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| Roger Glover, Ian Paice, Ian Gillan, Don Airey and Steve Morse |
