Genre-defining rock legends Deep Purple strolled into the Beacon Theater last night, and with a symphony backing them up, jammed a two hour set of classic rock hits for an awestruck audience.
When it comes to the foundations of modern hard rock music, three bands are generally considered the forefathers of all rock: Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple. And of the three, Deep Purple is the only one not only touring, but still innovating, as they chose to hire a full orchestra for their summer tour, which hit the PNC Arts Center in New Jersey last Friday before last night’s show at the Beacon, the first of a two night stand in the Upper West Side.
Notorious for lineup changes over their 30+ year career, fans were treated to most of Deep Purple’s critical members on stage, with longtime frontman Ian Gillan, bassist Roger Glover, and drummer Ian Paice cleanly locked in with each other from decades of sharing a stage. Newer members Steve Morse on guitar and keyboardist Don Airey were equally impressive, with the long-haired Morse in particular rocking out with the exuberance of a player half his age.
With two dozen symphony players filling the back of the stage, the show opened to orchestral strains echoing throughout the Beacon’s fantastic acoustics, but as soon as the band ripped into opening song Highway Star, fans rose to their feet and a genuine rock concert was underway. While the majority of fans were baby boomers reliving the music of their youth, there were plenty of teens in Metallica t-shirts as well, come to pay homage to the musicians who molded the almighty power chord into what it is today.
The band was in top form for the entire night, especially Gillan. The singer easily hit the highest ranges on songs like Hard Lovin’ Man and Strange Kind of Woman, and an especially enthusiastic Woman From Tokyo, which had the entire venue singing along. He engaged the crowd with the confidence and charisma of someone who has been doing this all his life, proving why fans flock from all around the tri-state area come to catch Deep Purple again and again.
While the band kicked ass on its own, the orchestra injected some interesting elements into the familiar songs, especially powerful on more poignant tracks like When A Blind Man Cries and Knocking At Your Back Door. Although Deep Purple has both played and recorded with orchestras in the past, the performance drew inevitable comparison’s to Metallica’s S&M symphony concert among those of us with more of a heavy metal background, but Deep Purple has always had more melody thanks to their keyboard player, and the fit seemed completely natural at times.
Each band member also got time to shine on their own, with Airey’s keyboard solo an easy highlight of the night, as he jammed on melodies just long enough for the audience to recognize classic rock snippets and classical movements before he flowed into the next one, by the end ripping through the keys like a guitar player on a fretboard.
The night wrapped up with Deep Purple’s best known songs, an epic Space Truckin’ leading into Smoke on the Water, which with the orchestra’s brass section playing along, sounded more like an upbeat marching tune than the raw riff taught to every beginning guitar player. After a quick break, the band then encored with their 1968 breakout single Hush, followed by Black Night, the band and orchestra jamming out for over ten minutes on the hard rocking tune before finally turning to the audience for a well-deserved standing applause.
Rock music has evolved dramatically since the heydays of the 60s, with grunge, indie, heavy metal, and thousands of sub-genres offering a rich tapestry of audio brilliance. But every one of those bands, from Megadeth to Nirvana to Arcade Fire, any band that has ever written a riff and said “hey, this rocks,” owes something to Deep Purple and its distinguished lineups over the years. That made last night’s show all the more enjoyable, beyond its raucous, two hours of straight up hard rock music that made heads bang and fists pump. The members of Deep Purple are class acts all the way, even taking time to sign autographs for fans waiting on the 75th Street stage entrance, and will serve as shining examples of how rock n’ roll is done for every future rock star to come.
Tickets are still available for tonight’s second performance, also at the Beacon, starting as cheap as $40. As always, stay in the loop with the Hard Rock Examiner for further information on tickets on-sales and all local rock and heavy metal news by subscribing at the top of this page, or follow me at twitter.com/NYROCKEXAMINER.
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