Well, let me be the pioneer of putting the new infrastructure to the test. What better topics to brag and moan about than this?
The band of 58 years of history, reportedly 24 studio albums and 9 line-ups currently narrows down the 18 song live set to 4 albums represented on stage. How does it make you all feel? I, for one, would definitely enjoy far much more a cross section of their history than going all “Machine Head” on and again. There’s really PLENTY to choose from and to reach what I think is a main goal for Deep Purple institution at this age:
Choose what fits your physical ability since mostly you’re 78-81 YO
Reach far and wide to the catalog
Combine pleasing casual fans with long term followers
Looking forward to see your thoughts about this.
We can also share set list ideas, but this time I wil administer basic rules to work within.
85 minutes of main set, 10-15 minutes of encores - engineer the content to this timeline
No “wet dream” unrealistic projections of "if they were 20 again and played with everyone brought back from heaven and hell".
Be more of realistic engineer than flown-off dreamer.
Good luck!
I’ll repeat my early idea from few days back to illustrate the concept.
Intro Tape - Bach - 3’
Knocking At Your Backdoor - 7’
No One Came - 6’
Lazy Sod - 5’
Splat! (with bass solo!) - 6’
Above And Beyond (dedicated to Jon Lord) - 6’
Sacred Land - 6’
Don solo - Lazy - 9’
Simon solo - Bloodsucker - 8’
Nothing At All - 5’
Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming - 7’
Pictures of You - 5’
Smoke on the Water - 7’
E1: 14. Highway Star / Speed King / Anya (interchangeable on various nights) - 7’
E2: 15. Hush / w Don-Simon duel - 8’
Interesting from a hard-core fan perspective, but sadly we do make up the minority of the audience. Most are there just to to MH/MiJ/Greatest Hits.
The current sets are put together to make it work best for IG. That said, if it was up to me, I’d drop Hard Lovin’ Man, Into the Fire and Black Night, and replace them with two more Ezrin-era tracks, plus something from _|_ (that’s Purpendicular for you youngsters) that suits Gillan’s current range. Possibly Rosa’s though I love to here SIFLS again.
Doug, you’re most probably right, but I think that despite the fact that we’re a minority as you point it out - it’s still needs to be voiced out. Otherwise the guys will get far beyond Lazy in that aspect (as if they weren’t at it already). At least I’m not ready to shelve it and watch it descent into lack of effort. Like Phill Mogg sang in UFO’s Stranger In Town: "If I don’t b*tch, someone will!"
Oh - people are constantly bringing this up. I have on several occasions, but the band do a set that works for them that goes down well with the audience, and the current set does both.
The Whoosh! Tour in 2022 had 13 songs (excluding solos) from six albums. The 2024 set went up to 16 songs, with 9 of them carried over from 2022, but still covering six albums. Both these tours has some minor changes during their respective tours (eg Hard Lovin’ Man being dropped in 2024).
The current set is still 16 songs (15 on earlier dates), with five albums represented. Six before Rapture was replaced with Splat! songs. But it does mean we are up to 7 tracks by the current line up.
That doesn’t look too bad until you realise 7 tracks, almost half the set, are still there from the Whoosh! Tour.
If it was up to me, I’d drop the three In Rock material, add in Mary Long and a couple of Morse tracks, and move Hush to the final encore track. I think it has been in the set too long, but have to admit the audience love it and the extended jam is a lit better than a straight take.
The band may still surprise us this year, though I suspect that will be the proper EU/UK tour rather than the US one. Guess we’ll find out soon enough.
My take on it is similar to yours, Doug. In the sense that I don’t expect the band to shake up the set list for the US leg of the tour. Given that they didn’t play a long US streak for a while (actually I don’t remember when there was a last one similar to that 2026 one), they will stick to easy crowd pleasing (and I’m not necessarily thinking it’s a bad thing in that case). American market almost always brings out a different approach.
Still, once they’re back on the European soil, I hope there will be some refreshment on the cards. At worst (if that’s not the case), at least I’m attending the show that reportedly would be tweaked for the occasion. And that makes me more looking forward to it, especially as I project it to be my last one. It’s time to draw a curtain down on this and enjoy the memories of past decades when the passing of time was more kind to them. It isn’t anymore.
This is certainly a part of an experience I would love to add to the basket, myself. I’ve been to RAH plenty of times for different artists since 2023, but always alone and I kind of missed an option to exchange the views and excitement. It’s always a value added to the experience as a whole.
One song they could potentially try is “Rat Bat Blue”, given the current virtuosity level of the harmony section (Don + Simon) and the fact that if you avoid the occasional screams, most of the singing is in the mid vocal range.
From the excellent new album: Arrogant Boy, The Rider and Splat!
Remove from the list please: In Rock material, Hush, =1 stuff.
Rest would be the inevitable (and great) MH/MiJ classics they have to play.
If my memory serves me correct - Rat Bat Blue survived month or so of regular stage play in first week of Purpendicular Tour. Reading bootleg from March 1996 has it, but then they dropped it, once Jon decided that the middle headlong bonanza is a bit too much to handle live on regular basis. The Jolene edition of the band ad-libbed the riff in the Cut Runs Deep middle improvisation in 1991. It’s true that it would be interesting to see how Mk9 handles it.
Great to see you here Julio, thanks for chipping in!
A me selle vecchie canzoni mancano strange kind of woman , rat bat blue, mary long (che suonarono a Milano nel tour di The Rapture Of..) e no one came.
I thought even if I wrote in italian, you should have read in English..
However, I wrote that I miss on stage songs like strange kind of woman, rat bat blue, no onecame and mary long (this last song was played in Milano on The Rapture Tour..).
Just perform the latest era music and see how much ‘fans’ support it. Easier said than done, but that will at least separate the ‘wheat from the chaff’, so to speak. Throw in a couple of older classics for the encore. Cheers.
I was yesterday at the show in Munich. The setlist was almost the same as 2 years ago, except that they played some songs from the new album. It’s neither a best-of nor a fan-favorite setlist. It’s just a feeling-save setlist for the band. It seems that at their age it’s hard to perform a song they haven’t performed the last years and Ian Gillan is almost blind. He can’t read the lyrics anymore from lyric sheets on the floor
I remember the enthusiastic article on The Highway Star when they added Hard Lovin’Man to the setlist 10 years ago and here it still is. I love that song. But I would also like to hear other classics. Rapture of the Deep was dropped very fast, so maybe they had problems performing it?
I would love to hear the music that made me a fan of the “living, breathing Deep Purple”, as it has been marketed over the past 30 years.
E.g. getting to hear Rapture of the Deep on this tour almost brought me to tears as I never expected to hear any of that music live again by the band.
So if we are fantasizing here, give me 1h30 of…
Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming
The Aviator
Almost Human
Watching The Sky
Bananas
Doing It Tonight
Rapture Of The Deep
Before Time Began
All The Time In The World
Vincent Price
Time For Bedlam
Nothing At All
Encore:
Smooth Dancer
Smoke On The Water (since that is why anyone else shows up anyway)
you can throw in a few new McBride songs for flavour and to round up the setlist, if necessary
Unfortunately, it seems anything post-1972 will be new-new songs from now on. I understand this perfectly from a musician’s and an entertainer’s perspective, but as a fan of the records that are not universally recognized as classics… well.
Automatic translation is an option in the software that runs the forum, but somebody has to pay for it, so we skipped on that instead of pestering you with ads.
