Deep Purple @ the Greek Theater, Los Angeles Concert Review

Last night saw the return of the legendary Deep Purple to Southern California for the first time in nearly four years. This performance was unique, as the band's current tour sees them performing with an orchestra, something which they have never done for American audiences. Pictures and sounds from the show along with a riff by riff rundown of the set list await you inside!

The addition of the orchestra with the band for this tour was not about performing orchestral re-arrangements of Deep Purple's music, nor was it to perform their seminal yet oft overlooked 1969 masterpiece, Concerto for Group and Orchestra. Instead, the addition of the orchestral musicians served to act as one more layer in the overall Purple sound. Vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, string section, horn section, percussion. Makes perfect sense, actually. And what a sound the assembled musicians created. Huge props must be given to Deep Purple's sound crew, because all the performers blended so very well together. This is no mean feat, because Purple's volume is the stuff of legend.

The set list covered nearly everything a casual fan would want to hear, along with a few surprises for hardcore fans. Machine Head was very well represented, as were other Deep Purple Mark II albums. Here is the full set list, including the amazing set of riffs from other artists which Steve Morse colored his performance with:

Highway Star
Hard Lovin' Man
Maybe I'm A Leo
Strange Kind of Woman
Rapture of The Deep
Woman from Tokyo
Contact Lost/Steve Morse solo
When A Blind Man Cries
The Well Dressed Guitar
Knocking At Your Back Door
Don Airey solo
Lazy
No One Came
Don Airey solo
Perfect Strangers
Space Truckin'
Smoke On The Water (with riffs from Mötley Crüe, Guns N' Roses, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC!)

Encores:
Hush
Ian Paice solo
Roger Glover solo
Black Night (with riffs from Van Halen's "Jamie's Cryin' and Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll (Part 2) included!)

 Opening on such a strong song as "Highway Star" would merely set the stage for one mind blowing moment after another during the concert. The addition of the heavy chug of "Hard Lovin' Man" coming immediately after it was quite unexpected and very welcome. The band didn't let up until after the fourth song, when Ian Gillan gave a very quick mention of their most recent album to set up the next song. This was among the biggest surprises of the concert, as most US fans still don't know Deep Purple put out a new album called Rapture Of The Deep in '05, and hearing the title cut from it was very exciting, especially for those who continue to follow the string of albums Purple has released since the late 1990's. The crowd's response to this song was quite strong, deservedly so as the band absolutely killed it with the performance.

The middle section of the concert was were things got serious from a performance perspective. Mind blowing might be a better description. Following "Woman From Tokyo" with its wonderful orchestral flourishes, Steve Morse began playing the beautiful and plaintive notes of "Contact Lost" from their '03 album, Bananas. This morphed into a stunning Morse solo that segued into an utterly haunting rendition of "When A Blind Man Cries" where Morse made the solo his own. Morse's time in the spotlight continued with the one song I truly had to hear on this evening, "The Well Dressed Guitar". This instrumental was made for the combination of group and orchestra and demonstrated perfectly why Steve Morse is one of the most talented (and criminally under-appreciated) musicians to ever put finger to fretboard.

Not letting up for a moment, the collective musicians tore into "Knocking At Your Back Door" from 1984's Perfect Strangers album. Kudos to the fellow concert goer who captured this performance.

This was just one of the highlights of the orchestra enhanced songs. Remember, Deep Purple were among the originators of the concept of combining a rock band with an orchestra.

Four strings + six strings = awesome

Next came one of the most amazing moments I've seen in a Deep Purple live show. Conductor Steven Bentley trading riffs with Steve Morse during the solo section of "Lazy". Pardon the blurry photos. Bentley was playing that violin incredibly fast.

A tale of two Steves. Steven Bentley and Steve Morse trading riffs at The Greek Theater

Up next was one of the biggest surprises for me personally, with the inclusion of "No One Came", which to my memory is the first time I've been in the crowd and seen Purple perform this song live. Keyboardist Don Airey took center spotlight for a solo which led into "Perfect Strangers", again among the best performances I've seen of this song and another made even better with the extra dynamics of the orchestra.

Despite blowing away the audience song after song, Purple were about to surprise many people who haven't seen them live in many years. On recent tours, Steve Morse has reinvented "Smoke On The Water", probably the single most famous riff in guitar history, into one of the highlights of Deep Purple's live shows by playing a history of riffs (a riffstory if you will) as in intro to the song. He tends to change up the songs he includes, and on this evening a quick piece of LA's Mötley Crüe turned into nearly 90 seconds of the full band playing Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine", much to the delight of the LA crowd. A little Zeppelin and AC/DC later and the 1, 2, 3 crunch of SOTW elicited the biggest cheer yet from the audience. As my friend (and fellow blogger) attending the show with me said at this point, "Steve Morse is the star of the show".

This being LA and with the Greek Theater nestled among multi-million dollar homes in Griffith Park, bands are on a strict curfew to finish on time. The encore came quicker than usual and went all the way back to Purple's 1968 debut for their cover of Joe South and Billy Joe Royal's "Hush". This led to Ian Paice, the only person to occupy the drum throne in Deep Purple's four decade-plus career, giving a quick drum solo that set up bassist Roger Glover's solo. Closing the set was "Black Night" with two very big surprises woven into the solo. Morse snuck in the main riff from Van Halen's "Jamie's Cryin' and then twisted the song into Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll (Part 2) which had the expected effect of uproarious "HEYS!" from the crowd.

This was my seventh time seeing Deep Purple live and was by far the best performance I have experienced yet, even out doing a few filmed-for-DVD releases. Despite being a Purple fan, I can be objective about them when justified, and Friday's performance deserves all this praise and more. I've been seeing some less than friendly, even downright nasty reviews from "professional" reviewers during this current tour, and to this, all I can say is, obviously you either hate music or weren't even at the shows you allegedly reviewed.

On a lighter note and from the Well Isn't That Odd But Cool Department, this was the second time ever and second time in just a week, where I've been in a concert audience and sang "Happy Birthday" to someone on stage. Last week, 55,000 of us sang birthday wishes to U2's manager Paul McGuinness in Anaheim, and last night we sang it to conductor Steven Bentley.

It would be remiss not to mention opening act Ernie and The Automatics. I had intentionally not read anything about them so as to have an open ear for a new artist. Much to the surprise of many, The Automatics six-man lineup included Boston guitarist Barry Goudreau and drummer Sib Hashian. The Automatics performed a solid set of blues rock originals and closed with a Boston medley that had the previously seated audience dancing in the aisles.

Deep Purple wrap up this tour tonight in Nor Cal and then head back to Europe. Here is hoping they don't wait another four years before coming back here to do what they do so well.

Very special thanks to my favorite photographer @RilakkonekoGirl for taking the awesome photos in this article! Props also to those who filmed and uploaded the videos featured in this article. I was having far too much fun rocking out to stand still long enough to hold a camera steady for 7+ minutes to tape anything!

For another angle and listen to Friday night's concert, here is a video of the opening of the show featuring "Highway Star".

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