Where Worlds Collide

After these small intimate club gigs where you can chat with the band in the bar afterwards, a visit to an enormodome is a different experience entirely. Nothing quite like those long queues for overpriced crap lager instead of real ale on tap!

First up was ‘Thin Lizzy’. Featuring no original members, and just guitarist Scott Gorham from their 70s heyday, they’re really more a tribute band than anything else. They weren’t quite as bad as I was expecting; John Sykes does a passible impression of Phil Lynott’s voice, and those classic songs stand up well enough in their own right regardless of who’s singing them. They played for just over half an hour, playing a set made up entirely from the biggest hits.

Styx were the revelation of the night. I have to admit that it was their presence on the bill that tipped the balance for me, although I didn’t really know what to expect from them. Without Dennis DeYoung in the band, they left out their later commercial fluff like “Babe” and “Mr Roboto” in favour of older, rockier material by James Young and Tommy Shaw. And they absolutely rocked, great music and great showmanship, and a hard act for Purple to follow.

At about 9:30, Deep Purple hit the stage, and launched into ‘Pictures of Home’. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been seeing all these bands fronted by 22 year olds, but Purple look old; all grey hair (those that have hair, that is). But they still rock, even now. The setlist included most of the standards people expect to hear like ‘Smoke’ and ‘Highway Star’, and enough surprises to keep those of us who have heard ‘Smoke’ 101 times before interested. Biggest suprise was a great rendition of ‘The Battle Rages On’ from the late Blackmore period, an era they’ve normally skipped. Another gem was an emotional version of ‘When a Blind Man Cries’ which got a few raised lighters. Ian Gillan might not be able to hit the high notes (no ‘Child in Time’ nowadays), but was still on good form vocally. The real star of the evening for me was the newest member of the band, Don Airey, on the Hammond B3 with some incredible keyboard runs. And it was a real B3 with rotating Leslie cabinets; none of these plastic synths.

Overall, a great show, for which the audience got their money’s worth, and then some. Purple were good, but in my opinion the band of the night were Styx. If they come back to these shores for a headline tour I’ll be getting tickets.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 at 10:14 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.