August 22 2014 – Deep Purple stormed Casino Rama tonight as part of their Now What?! tour that has so far featured 86 stops in countries in North America, Europe, Asia and even Africa. Now What?! is the band’s latest album released in 2013 and was widely regarded as one of the finest classic rock releases of that year. Not only was the album very successful in capturing the vintage Purple sound of the 70’s it also proved the band was not content with just touring their old material.
Deep Purple have released 19 studio albums in their 46 year career (the band started in 1968) and have sold over 100 million records. The band has endured many lineup changes and a total of 14 musicians have been in Deep Purple. The most successful lineup named Mark II was from 1969-1973 and 1984-1989 and the lineup included 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 the recently deceased Lord to form what is now referred to as the Mark VIII lineup.
The interplay between Morse and Airey as well as their individual solos were absolute on mark and in fact the 2 “new” guys were instrumental in elevating the overall band performance to a level that would rival even Lord and Blackmore. Speaking of solos, each member of the band had the opportunity to take the spotlight with a solo and we were treated with a drum solo, a guitar solo, a bass solo and 2 keyboard solos throughout the night.
Highway Star kicked off the night and the band sounded like vintage Deep Purple – the opener was greeted by great cheers and although people were still being seated the band gave it their all. It has been said that first impressions count and Gillan blew away all expectations with his powerful voice – this set the tone for the rest of the night.
Continuing with the vintage songs of the early 70’s Deep Purple delivered 2 solid tunes from their In Rock album – Into The Fire and Hard Lovin Man. The stage backdrop consisted of 5 vertical screens that would alternate between various members of the band or random color bands. The clean design of the stage really permitted the band to rightfully take center stage.
Deep Purple were able to showcase 3 songs from their new album interspersed in the middle of the set and surprisingly did not lose their crowd. The toughest challenge for classic rock bands is to get their patrons interested in their new material, but the “new” songs sounded so much like classic Purple that many of the casual fans of the band in attendance had no idea how new songs like Vincent Price, Uncommon Man, and Hell To Pay are.
If there has ever been a career defining song for a band Smoke On The Water is it (right up there with The Eagles and Hotel California). 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. I would personally argue it is more significant and loved than their number 1 choice – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones. The band’s Magnum Opus closed out the main set and had the casino faithful singing along and was also the finale of the 3 biggest songs of the night – Perfect Strangers, Space Truckin and Smoke On The Water.
As an aside – the story behind Smoke On The Water 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 4 tracks from that album being played tonight.
The encore lost a bit of steam compared to the 3 songs that ended the main set but it was pure fun and consisted of Hush, Green Onions and Black Night as well as a Roger Glover bass solo.
Overall all 5 musicians were tight – Morse hammered his guitar(s) while smiling all the time, Airey mesmorized the patrons with his nimble fingers and even played a bit of Oh Canada! in his keyboard solo, Glover was unrelenting on his hammering of the bass strings with perfect rhythm, Paice took command of the kit like a drummer possessed, and last but not least Gillan had the voice of his much younger self and maintained the power in his lyrics. Oddly enough Gillan no longer looks like a rock star but with his hair looks a bit more like a young George W. Bush or an older Captain Kirk. Boy can that dude sing though!
Casino Rama proved to be an excellent venue both for the sound and the clean sightlines. The venue was sold out as expected and the show was on par with the last time we saw Deep Purple in 2012 at Toronto’s Massey Hall.
Verdict 4.5 out of 5 – The anthem tonight was Smoke On The Water and needless to say Deep Purple metaphorically burned Casino Rama to the ground with their earth shattering classic rock masterpieces. Easily a top contender for T-Mak World’s Top 10 Concerts of 2014 list. We leave you with the setlist for the night.
We leave you with some images from this incredible night where Deep Purple delivered a royal flush set at Casino Rama – August 2014.
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