Deep Purple paints the town purple in Manchester

The number of rock bands from the 60s and 70s that can still fill arenas is gradually getting smaller but hard rock legends like Deep Purple continue to dominate and put out some of the best music of their careers. Despite going on a farewell tour a few years ago, Deep Purple have returned to Manchester and they brought along British rockers, Reef as support.

Reef was the only support and they delivered a great set of rock music inspired by the likes of Pearl Jam and classic Southern rock acts like Lynyrd Skynyrd. There’s a strange crossover of sounds but it all works especially well in an arena setting.

The crowd is fairly reserved through Reef’s set but there’s still a warm reception as they flow through their set of laid back AOR hits like ‘Place Your Hands’ and ‘Naked,’ they even ended the show with a surprisingly faithful cover of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’ which got everyone in the mood for more 70s hard rock.

Reef seem like the kind of band that would garner a highly dedicated cult following similar to a band like The Dave Matthews Band, it’s that same kind of guitar-driven easy listening that would appeal to the same crowd. There’s enough to latch onto even if the lead singer looks like Jim Varney slowly morphing into Kid Rock but with a Cornish accent.

Finally, Deep Purple made it to the stage and they ripped through the high-octane speeding anthem, ‘Highway Star’. Everyone was firing on all cylinders, Simon McBride replicated the iconic guitar work of Richie Blackmore and keyboardist Don Airey continues to fill the gigantic shoes left behind by the legendary Jon Lord.

The majority of the set is made up of deep cuts and modern tracks which may put some people off but it’s still of a high quality. While tracks like ‘Burn,’ ‘Woman From Tokyo’ and ‘Perfect Strangers’ may be missing but the more modern tracks like ‘Now You’re Talking’ with it’s trade-offs of organ/guitar solos, ‘Lazy Sod’ and the psychedelic weirdness of ‘Portable Door’ which came with some insane story about Ian Gillan travelling between dimensions, a story which I’m willing to believe actually happened.

Deep Purple is very much a jam band, that’s always been the case and it likely always will be. Each instrumentalist is given a chance to shine and that’s best exemplified on ‘Uncommon Man,’ Simon McBride gets a full extended guitar solo complete with volume swells and even a cheeky riff from ‘Enter Sandman’. Simon is a new member but it feels like he understands the Deep Purple tone and feeling as the band push the surprisingly heavy riffing of ‘Uncommon Man’.

Keyboardist Don Airey had many chances to show off his skills, his extended keyboard solo saw him playing parts of Mr Crowley and perhaps even other songs that I just didn’t notice. Keyboard solos aren’t especially common in rock anymore so it’s all the more exciting to hear a legend perform one and even pay tribute to the original keyboard legend: Jon Lord. The visuals are quite psychedelic at times which certainly adds to that early 70s Hammond organ aesthetic and tone but the real highlights of the solo are when Don loses all the effects and gimmicks and just plays beautiful clean piano music.

There are lots of surprises throughout the show including the extended jam session of ‘Lazy’ which came with a killer harmonica solo from Ian Gillan and Simon McBride had his David Gilmour moment on ‘When A Blind Man Cries’. The middle portion of the show may have been full of modern hits and deep cuts but the end of the show was chock full of immortal mega hits. The intergalactic national anthem and inspiration for the 1996 Stuart Gordon cult classic, ‘Space Truckers: Space Truckin,’ which still has all the same psychedelic blues-driven swagger driven masterfully by the masterful drumming of Ian Pace. ‘Space Truckin’ may be iconic but it pales in comparison to the immortal riff that started millions of bands and was shortly outlawed in music shops across the world: ‘Smoke On The Water’.

The show ended with a mix of old and new: ‘Old Fangled Thing’ shows off Ian Gillan’s scatting skills, while the school hits get the crowd singing along to ‘Hush’ before the band went off on their extended jam and the blues-driven guitar riff laden ‘Black Night’ complete with pedal board wizardry. It’s amazing that a band like Deep Purple can mix old songs with new ones and get a similar reaction to both.

Deep Purple may have lied about retiring but at least that means we get more time with one of Britain’s finest rock bands and some of the most amazing musicians of the 20th century, playing some of the greatest rock riffs of all time. Perhaps next time it would be nice to hear more of a greatest hits tour, but it’s refreshing to see an older band putting as much effort into new material as older classics.