A rock and roll evening at its best took place on Saturday, 18th of February 2006. Two hard rocking legends gave their best and offered the audience an unforgettable show.

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The opener for this evening was :: SHE SAYS :: The young band from Vienna is the proof that you can find fine poprock bands with casting shows. This is as long as these shows are not broadcast on TV but on the radio, so that the music is the most important thing and not the visual appearance decides. The quartet took the chance to play in front of a bigger audience – though at this time the hall wasn’t already half full. The gig was ok, but the reactions were contained. Probably because older people in here have come to see their heroes from their best days and they didn’t want to deal with this newcomer.

But there were completely different reactions when :: ALICE COOPER :: and his band entered the stage! Young and old fans claimed for the prince of darkness and urged him on. ALICE COOPER delighted with classics from his repertoire. The vocalist and this team played wonderfully outstanding pearls like Dirty Diamonds, Billion Dollar Babies, I’m Eighteen, Poison, Under My Wheels and so on. Of course the show didn’t miss: epee and dollar notes, balloons, a zombie – ballerina, a vampire, jailer and obvious the guillotine had their appearance. By the way, the persiflage of Paris Hilton was sensational: that high-society drama queen got assaulted by her tiny stuffed animal dog and bitten to blood. She hit back while paparazzi took pictures of her and in the end one of these scandal reporters took her on his shoulder to carry her out while the other took pictures from under her skirt. Killingly funny!
Mr. Vincent Damon Furnier enjoyed with his combatants a perfect sound and they were visibly in a good mood. They sprinkled joy to play and fun, banged, posed and rocked ad infinitum. It didn’t take five seconds and the audience was set on fire by this horror rock and roll. This concert was simply a sensational, incredible party. It’s really cool how the old Alice makes it with his 58 years.

There was a short romantic intermezzo after the break for rebuilding the stage. A fan made his girlfriend on stage a proposal of marriage in front of the public that applauded.

Finally the second legend entered the stadium: :: DEEP PURPLE :: The quintet didn’t need the time to bat an eyelid to cast a spell on the audience and catch everyone in the magic of their music. The musicians didn’t spare any pains and excoriated their fingertips in numerous solo their fans awaited like a cold beer in the desert. But in my humble opinion exactly this was the (only) hitch of the gig: endless solo during every single (!!!) song strained my patience a lot. I mean these solo are for sure the best I have ever heard or seen, but to blow up every 4 minutes song, in which only two minutes are sung, up to 9 – 10 minutes was too much for me.
But the fans appreciated exactly this most, because a look over the public revealed lots of incredulous looking faces. It’s obvious, as Ian Gillan, Steve Morse, Roger Glover, Don Airey und Ian Paice are simply unique and exceptional musicians. Also if the solo were too much – you must have seen them play.
The maestros performed actual hits like Rapture Of The Deep, who wonders, absolutely perfectly, flawless and with virtuosity. But the arena turned into hells kitchen when DEEP PURPLE started with their old hits Highway Star and, during the addition, Black Nights. Also Smoke On The Water wasn’t be missed, and Damon Johnson and Ryan Roxie, the ALICE COOPER guitarists’, entered the stage and played that classic with three guitars. Really a nice gag – the song sounded much more powerful with three guitars. Great!

Reflecting all this, it was a great evening with good music and strong bands, which didn’t disappoint any single fan in the audience. Ok, from the age SHE SAYS have played on the wrong gig, but as a young band you have to play wherever you can and a concert in front of a few thousands people surely has done them well. Where ALICE COOPER played a ventral, instinctive rock’n’roll DEEP PURPLE made music for higher body regions. The solo were partially too much for me, but on the other hand if you have such superb musicians in your band you can show their virtuosity. An additional commendation goes to the organizers, who reserved a place in the hall for the disabled from where they were perfectly able to follow the gig.

story & pics © Stefano