Five gray Purplers onstage. Singer Ian Gillan: "Can I get five beers up here?" Turning to the band: "And what do you guys want?"
Vintage rock, vintage joke. But like beer, music must be made fresh. And Deep Purple did that again. How?
1) Play the non-obvious sometimes. From the 1972 landmark album "Machine Head," the desperate energy of "Pictures of Home" served both as a hep deep track and an early stretch for Gillan's vocal cords. From 1970's "In Rock," the twisty "Bloodsucker" made us not miss "Speed King," made us marvel at how many syllables Gillan can still squeeze into a measure, and made us wonder whom he's still needling after half a century about the 20 pounds he never paid back. Less successful, because it's only the sixth-best song from 2017's "Infinite," was "Time for Bedlam," but at least it showcased a meaty riff and gave Gillan a chance to indulge his thespian proclivities with declamatory social comment.
2) Make us cry sometimes. 2013's "An Uncommon Man" memorialized late Purple keyboardist Jon Lord with an unlikely but inspiring combination of loss and triumph. And 1996's "Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming" not only featured Gillan's most heartbreaking breakup tale, but also a supreme example of guitarist Steve Morse's sensitivity -- although the song's Wikipedia entry describes his scored solo as "repetitive," it in fact ingeniously recontextualizes a weeping 15-note figure against many different harmonic backgrounds, like a man looking back again and again on the last 24 hours and wondering where he went wrong.
3) JAM. Just when we thought mild-mannered Don Airey's obligatory extended keyboard workout couldn't get any crazier, it did, whirling into galaxies of atonality not heard since John Coltrane's "Om" but ROCKING, as suitably abstract images flashed on the triptych projection screens. And "Hush" (recently featured in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"), a concise hit chugger in 1968, has become a full-on rhythm orgy for throbbin' bassist Roger Glover and Ian Paice, the only drummer who can deliver a bison stampede while appearing as if he's sipping gin in a recliner.
Tall Gillan looked thin, swaying gently in the breeze but in no danger of toppling. Although in impressive voice, he was perhaps conserving energy early in "The Long Goodbye" tour, wherein Purple hits 40 American and European cities in three months. There's a November break in which Paice, Glover and Morse will each be doing a mess of side dates, too. Accomplishing this in their 70s seems nearly inconceivable, but perhaps more so to lazy wimps who write about music from their own recliners.
Young Orange County rockers Joyous Wolf leaped, posed and demanded applause as if they were the headliner. Admirable confidence, but please visit my grave to measure their progress in about 2068, 50 years after JW's signing to Roadrunner and 100 years after Deep Purple's first album. The goodbye can be long, but the hello usually isn't.
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PHOTOS BY FUZZY BOURG.