Deep Purple – Massey Hall, Toronto - February 12, 2012
Submitted by Laurie 13 weeks 1 hour ago
Review and Photos by Dave MacIntyre
If you think about the origins of hard rock and more importantly, the bands that influenced the various transformation of hard rock into the countless sub-genres that exist today, there are few that have made the kind of impact Deep Purple has. Sure, Black Sabbath will always be recognized as the godfathers of metal, but how many people are aware that Deep Purple had formed a year before they did? The same goes for Led Zeppelin, although at the time of Deep Purple’s formation, had only just emerged in the New Yardbirds phase of their existence. Now fast-forward 4 decades and who is still alive and rocking a packed venues around the globe? Deep Purple; and they did so for nearly 2 hours at Massey Hall on Sunday night.
After an impressive warm up set by Monster Truck, Ian Gillan and company took to the stage and hit the crowd hard with “Highway Star”. Although musically solid, Gillan seemed to miss the mark on some of the opening song’s higher octaves, but was clearly just getting started. Four songs in, his vocal chords now warm, he nailed “Strange Kind Of Woman” and would continue to put on a stellar display for the remainder of the show.
The biggest surprise of the evening wasn’t so much what was happening on stage, rather the unruly behaviour of Deep Purple’s fan base. These aging rockers wouldn’t sit still, making it nearly as entertaining to watch Massey Hall’s event staff trying unsuccessfully to coral them out of the aisles and back to their seats, as it was to watch the show. Evidently, the band fed off the energy and on a few occasions thanked the fans for their enthusiasm.
Throughout the performance, Deep Purple highlighted their talents as individuals. Ian Paice thrilled the crowd with a blinding drum solo, Steve Morse proved he could make his guitar sing like a church choir during “Well-Dressed Guitar” and Don Airey’s organ spotlight would have made the great Mozart take notice. Even Roger Glover put on a bass guitar clinic during “Hush” at the start of the encore.
The highlight of the evening came during the 3-song stretch just before the encore in which Deep Purple played outstanding versions of “Perfect Strangers”, “Space Truckin’”, and the instantly recognizable “Smoke On The Water”.
When all was said and done, I felt elated that I had experienced one of England’s best ever rock bands, and 40 years be damned, in just as rock-solid form as they would have been 20 years earlier.
