reCAP :: Deep Purple w/ The Golden Grass :: 2015.07.25
At around 9 pm Saturday night, Deep Purple took the stage of The Capitol Theatre to thunderous applause from an audience decked out in t-shirts celebrating the acclaimed rock band’s various world tours. They launched right into “Highway Star,” with Don Airey and Steve Morse taking stellar solos and keys and guitar, respectively. From the opening notes of the track until the closing flourishes, Deep Purple proved that they were still capable of bringing the house down.
The next highlight came with the groovy riffs of “Strange Kind of Woman,” where Airey and Morse played more phenomenal solos, this time trading off before ending on some incredible high notes. Before beginning the next song, “Vincent Price,” lead singer Ian Gillan cracked a lyrical joke with the audience: “I’m afraid to sing this next song. It scares me to death.” Gillan has a good rapport with his audiences, with his affable English accent and good-natured smile. As “The Well-Dressed Guitar” came to a close, he led the entire audience in a rapturous clapping outro before introducing “The Mule” by saying “this is a song about a cross between a donkey and a horse.” “Mule” ended with an epic drum solo, courtesy of Ian Paice, which only increased in intensity when the stage lights cut out and he swapped his regular sticks for some color-changing LED drumsticks.
The band powered through “Hell to Pay,” where Gillan shared the microphone with Morse and bassist Roger Glover for the rousing chorus of “there’s gonna be hell/HELL TO PAY!” They then left the stage, allowing Don Airey to enthrall the audience with a full showcasing of his keyboard proficiency. He gave the various effects on his keyboard a good workout, also teasing through recognizable passages of classical music as well as a few bars of “America, the Beautiful.” The full band resumed with “Perfect Strangers,” which ended with Ian Gillan center stage, arms slightly raised as though he were powering up, feeding off of the manic energy of The Cap’s audience. He used whatever he had just garnered for a powerful “Space Truckin’” before Steve Morse launched into the four-bar riff so instantaneously recognizable that it has been burned into the lexicon of rock and roll for eternity. Deep Purple played a mountainous “Smoke on the Water,” with Steve Morse soloing in front of a backdrop of fire, culminating in Ian Gillan leading the audience in singing chorus in perfect unison.
After a brief respite, the encore began with “Hush,” featuring another round of keyboard and guitar trading solos, and ended with a wonderful rendition of “Black Night.” As the show drew to a close, Morse took center stage one final time to lead the audience in a call-and-response: the crowd adoringly echoed Morse’s lead guitar lines after he played them to great effect.
When a rock band is thirty or more years into their career, it can sometimes beg the question of whether or not they’ve still got “it,” that magical factor that rock and roll springs forth from. As Deep Purple played long and loud into the night, as giant projections of the five band members danced across The Capitol Theatre’s walls, as the fans cheered madly, there was no question to be asked. Whatever “it” is, Deep Purple has no shortage of it. Critics everywhere, hush.