September 15, 2004
Deep Purple storms the Shaw and uncorks some classics

EDMONTON -- Don't worry if you missed your 25th high school reunion - last night's Deep Purple concert did the trick.

Many a "hey, man, I haven't seen you since Gretzky was traded" was overheard.

Actually, I had a lousy time in high school, but at least the music was swell. And Machine Head was a big part of it. Made in Japan, too. Kudos to these 60-ish British rockers for bringing such a vivid evening of total regression for the 3,600 fans at the Shaw Conference Centre. Aside from a few people who weren't born when Smoke on the Water was a hit - the future retro classic rockers that are going to keep this stuff alive when we're all dead - you never usually see this much long grey hair outside of the Edmonton Folk Music Festival, though with far more leather vests. It was as if Deep Purple had been sealed in a time capsule in 1972 and released just for us. Thanks, lads. You rock.

While serving up plenty of brain-melting bombast, shameless self-indulgence and great wads of faux-classical sturm und drang, Purple is not your ordinary art rock band. Sure, some of the songs may be complicated, "progressive," even, but when you break them down, they're basically about chicks, cars and rock 'n' roll. Emerson Lake and Palmer does songs like Karn Evil 9 Impression No. 2, which is about ... well, we're still not sure. Deep Purple does songs like Knocking At Your Back Door, which singer Ian Gillan said last night was about "an activity that used to be illegal until we wrote a song about it." Do I have to spell it out for you? He claimed that all Deep Purple songs are "true stories." We also heard My Woman From Tokyo, Strange Kind of Woman, Perfect Strangers and Highway Star. Oh, yeah, and Smoke on the Water was expected for the encore. Like I've said before, this piece of music is possibly as well known as Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Seven simple notes is all you need.

Space Truckin' is about as "out there" as this band gets, lyrically. It's a song about taking a cruise in space, the very thing for when one is stoned. Hey, we were high then. We were high last night. That's right - high on nostalgia, the fragrant blue smoke a mere enhancement to the experience.

That the band insisted on doing several tracks from the new album, Bananas - whose title tracks sounds crazy enough - should be forgiven. They write new songs so they can keep up their enthusiasm for the old stuff. Boy, did they ever. As the night went on, the intensity and musicianship increased to the point the band was actually an improvement of the listener's memory of them, this listener, in any case. They sounded great and they looked like they were having a riot. Besides, some of the new songs weren't half bad. I've Got Your Number had some substance, showing Gillan is still capable of howling out the high notes, though he looks like a televangelist. And of particular note was a haunting Steve Morse guitar workout in tribute to the astronauts killed in the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, called Contact Lost. The mirror balls were fired up, as were the Bic lighters.

This was followed closely by the ridiculous musical introduction of the new guy, keyboardist Don Airey, who's now responsible for that screamin' Hammond sound crucial to the Deep Purple experience. In the course of a three-minute solo, he played what sounded like Gershwin, Bach, boogie-woogie, ragtime piano, the theme from The Simpsons, side two from Dark Side of the Moon, O Canada and the theme from Star Wars. Geez. It was almost comical and pointless self-indulgence that said nothing save for showing off impressive chops. Virtuosity for its own sake is never enough, though again this can be forgiven. Deep Purple does whatever it wants because they can get away with it. They're not in this game to please their fans, they're here to please themselves and therefore come across with more fun and passion than someone who's desperate for a hit, and guess what? That pleases the fans even more. Ask anyone with long grey hair and a leather vest who was at the show.

Opening act Thin Lizzy possessed all the required traits to set the stage for our evening of classic rock time travel: Screaming guitar solos, fast tempos, songs that deal with "trouble" in one form or another, sphincter-loosening volume and a lead singer who came off like Nigel Tufnel and David St. Hubbins in one. Indeed, Spinal Tappian rock cockery reigned supreme throughout their set, ended by that wondrous one hit, The Boys are Back in Town. If there's one thing classic rock is good at, it's pointing out the obvious with such vigor.

JAM! Rating: 4.5 out of 5