Deep Purple Tribute Concert, Hard Rock Cafe

WHAT: Z3 presents a tribute to Deep Purple (Event page)
WHERE: Hard Rock Cafe, Worli, Mumbai
WHEN: 15 October 2009

WHO: One Night Stand, hosted by Luke Kenny. Guest appearances by Aditi Sharma (Crimson) and Suraj Jagan (Chakraview)

I can’t think of too many bands that could simultaneously appeal to an audience ranging from a white-haired, moustachioed ‘uncle’ who’s on the verge of retirement, to a 15-year old college kid who’s just discovered hormones.

Deep Purple is one such band. Having released their first album way back in 1968, and being one of the torchbearers of hard rock and heavy metal through the 70s and 80s, they have the audience who are now contemplating what to name their grandkids. At the same time, with some tracks that have stood the test of time and are covered by young rock bands even in today’s hip-hop world, it is not out of place to see schoolkids headbanging to Highway Star. Their music is not of the physically demanding variety such as Iron Maiden that would cause an early fan to say, “Ah, but I can’t jump around like I used to in the 80s!”. Deep Purple is a band that can be enjoyed either in the mosh pit or while sipping a whisky with office colleagues.

All these observations and more were highly evident at Mumbai’s Hard Rock Cafe, on 15^th of October, when a very worthy band, One Night Stand, covered 14 of the legendary English band’s best tracks.

As with most Indian gigs (or meetings, or parties, or just about anything), the show didn’t start on time. However, the crowd had some interesting music blaring out from a rather good sound system – mainly old classics. What is interesting to see in the rock fraternity in Mumbai is that people will never admitting to liking a song that is considered ‘un-rock’. This was evident at Independence Rock when some stall started playing Crawling, and today when the sound system belted out Run To You. It’s sad to see people refusing to want to sing along to a song, just because it’s considered ‘non-rock’, even if they go “Aaah! I recognize this kickass riff!”. Anyway. We deviate.

When One Night Stand took stage, they insisted on calling themselves “One Night Stand… The Band!”. They had a fetish for introducing themselves over and over again, and we must have heard the members’ names atleast six times during the night. Luke Kenny intro-ed the band and then went off, a wise thing to do given how Mumbai’s volatile rock-loving crowd would have probably yelled a tune from Rock On!!

Contrary to what I expected, there was no chronology to the songs. ONS started with the explosive Fireball, before getting into Might Just Take Your Life and Woman from Tokyo. The very noticeable thing here was how effortlessly Jay, the vocalist, switched from Ian Gillan to David Coverdale. Both me and my friend were of the opinion that Jay does a brilliant Coverdale, and (you can sense the pun coming) he should cover more Coverdale. Right then.

At this point we realised the bassist, Poopsie, was a total showman and outshone the lead guitarist! And that is saying something for a man who effortlessly played the best of Blackmore’s solos. Moving on, the band covered Stormbringer (sadly, the iconic distorted wah-wahs of Jon Lord’s organs were missing) and Never Before, a song not too many Indian rock fans would have hoped to see covered live. Also, special mention to Casey, the drummer – who did a brilliant job of replicating the only Deep Purple member to survive all lineups – Ian Paice. His fills and solos were mind-blowing and me, standing under the overhead speaker, got the full blow of his bass drum!

Aditi Singh Sharma, the excellent vocalist of Delhi band Crimson (who did the Delhi leg of this tribute tour). They covered one of my favourite Deep Purple songs, the legendary 1984 track, Perfect Strangers. What made this song more special for DP fans is the fact that the legendary Mark-II lineup reunited after the band had been on a 6-year hiatus. Aditi had brilliant stage presence, but I thought the rendition was a little too bee-boppy (if that’s the right term) for my liking. Still, nicely done. Jay got back onto vocals, and tantalised the crowd asking us to hum the intro of Black Night, promising us the track would come later in the day. He went on to belt out the magnificent Burn, during which the critical would say Jay did a shoddy job, but the discerning would realise how difficult it is to cover Coverdale and Gillan. Brilliant vocalists, both. This was followed by Space Truckin’ (with Aditi), the promised Black Night, and Speed King, the highlight of which was the Blackmore-Lord-esque jugalbandhi between the guitarist and the keyboardist, Sushil, who was quite excellent and had his army of support. This was the first song to be written by Gillan, by the way.

The last half hour saw the most popular tracks, but of course. Highway Star was brilliantly done but then things started going downhill when Luke Kenny, who after a night of throwing away free CDs and Z3 shirts, decided to come onto vocals for a pumped-up version of Soldier of Fortune. No disrespect to Kenny, he probably had to sing because he was the big name, but they were doing quite well without him. The low point was when Hush, the only song from the first three albums, was systematically screwed up, with off-key vocals and wrong lyrics. Still, no one can deny that Kenny got the crowd involved. The guitarist and bassist too, with the advantage of wireless, managed to get onto the platform which is normally reserved for the traditional Hard Rock Cafe YMCA dance.

Then came the night’s surprise element – Suraj Jagan of Chakraview (Rock On!!, anyone?) on vocals for Smoke on the Water (one of the most famous rock songs of all time and most iconic guitar riff), followed by an encore, for which Highway Star was needlessly played again. Needless because there were so many other songs begging to be played, and that brings me to what the gig lacked – variety. Deep Purple were as brilliant mellow as they were loud, and this gig focussed on only the loud. Soldier of Fortune was needlessly pumped up, and it was almost shocking not to hear Child in Time being played (although we did have the unfortunate experience of hearing Luke hum the first paragraph). But to be fair, it’s probably the toughest DP song to sing, with Gillan at his best, and it was perhaps a little too long. It was also disappointing not to see more exotic stuff from the Mark-I era, very few people have heard brilliant songs like Hard Road, One More Rainy Day and April. And we got to hear nothing after 1984 (the band’s last album was in 2005). Would have loved to hear the Purpendicular Waltz, but ah.

Still, all in all, a thoroughly enjoyable gig. Three cheers to the sponsors, Z3, EMI and Rolling Stone for bringing back the magic (not Magik, please note) of Deep Purple. Once again we were reminded of the class that was Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Ian Paice, Jon Lord and of course Ritchie Blackmore (and of course the others, but you have to admit that this is the lineup!). With headbanging uncles cheek-in-jowl with college kids, Deep Purple remain everpurple. If you haven’t heard Deep Purple yet, check out our list, and like their 1975 release is titled, Come Taste The Band!

Deepak Gopalakrishnan aka Chuck is a social media professional who gorges on PG Wodehouse, jigsaw puzzles, Iron Maiden, Blackstratblues and cricket.  He tries to draws incessant observations on everything in life from auto drivers to bartenders. Atleast he tries to. He blogs at www.chroniclesofdementia.blogspot.com and tweets (like a maniac) at www.twitter.com/chuck_gopal.