Deep Purple: Space Truckin' at Saratoga

SARATOGA SPRINGS - It was a small but enthusiastic crowd of 4,000 that flocked to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center Tuesday night. The faithful were treated to the loud sounds of classic rock's past as the triple-bill of Joe Satriani, Thin Lizzy and heavy metal demi-gods Deep Purple roared into town.

Dating back to Deep Purple's earliest days, bassist Roger Glover and drummer Ian Paice were led by long-time vocalist Ian Gillian who alternated from shaking a tambourine to strumming air guitar power chords and wailing like a heavy-metal banshee.

The three were joined by relative newcomers Steve Morse - attempting to fill the big shoes of former guitarist Ritchie Blackmore - and the medieval organ-meets-boogie-woogie piano style of keyboardist Don Airey.

Silver-haired, suntanned and draped in a billowing white frock, Gillian looked like a cross between Tony Bennett and Muammar Khadafy as he belted out the vocals in front of a large backdrop festooned with images of 'Bananas' - the title of the band's most recent album,
from which a handful of tunes were performed.

The best of these were the symphonic overture turned metal head banger 'I've Got Your Number,' and the solemn instrumental 'Contact Lost,' dedicated to the lost crew of the
Columbia Space Shuttle.

Framed by rows of amplifiers, fog machines and a pair of large mirror balls, the band was at
its best with its vintage material, from the diabolically perverse 'Knocking at Your Back Door'
of the 1980s to a slew of rock anthems written a decade earlier.

Gillian beckoned the crowd to chant along to fan favorites 'Space Truckin''' and 'Woman from Tokyo,' ratcheted up the rhythm section leading to the explosive 'Highway Star,' and bellowed under the white heat of the flashing strobe lights during the set closing 'Smoke on the Water,' which burned at full-throttle as fresh as it was pouring out a radio tuned to the FM dial rolling down the highway of the 1970s.

Thin Lizzy appeared earlier in the evening performing their black leather anthems 'Jailbreak' and 'The Boys are Back in Town' under the evening's waning red sun, followed by guitar guru Joe Satriani.

Satriani fronted his band with all sorts of guitar wizardry, from looping sonic oodlings to sharp and cutting saw-toothed tomes. Best known for his album 'Surfing with the Alien,' Satriani bopped, rocked and plucked his six-string with the craftiness of a musician intimately familiar with his instrument.

In closing out the evening, Deep Purple proved that while time has marched on and the band's lineup has gone through a number of alterations, little has changed in their sonic delivery.

Once listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the loudest band in the world, the sheer volume of the band's set was somewhere near the proverbial sticking your head inside the nozzle of a jet engine.
One has to wonder what was running through the minds of recreational golfers wielding nine irons a few hundred yards away as the earth shook from the band's heavy vibrations.

For their encore, the band revisited their 1968 rendition of 'Hush,' punctuated by Gillian's blood-curdling howl, a wailing grand finale that catapulted clear across the state park and undoubtedly ricochet over the city for another 35 years, at least.

by Thomas Dimopoulos
published in The Saratogian, Aug. 19, 2004