Like Well Aged Wine

Edgar Winter, age 70
Alice Cooper, age 69
Ian Gillan, age 72
Roger Glover, age 71
Ian Paice, age 69
Don Airey, age 69
Steve Morse, age 63

With a combined 483 years of life experience, most of which has been spent as professional musicians, you would expect a performance with Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, and The Edgar Winter Band to show some sort of musical ability, but you would be wrong.  Their performance last night at the Klipsch Music Center in Noblesville, Indiana, did not show some sort of musical ability, but was rather a demonstration of what happens when human beings dedicate their lives to developing native abilities few others have.  It was like watching Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt.  The years of relentless practice and performance of one particular gift is revealed as fingers fly over strings and keyboards and drumsticks fly in blinding rhythm and voices cry out the songs that have entertained the world for, in some cases, almost fifty years.

The evening started with Edgar Winter, who is, quite simply, a phenomenon like no other.  His diverse virtuosity was on display as he prowled about the stage, moving from saxophone to keyboard to drums to microphone.  At one point he engaged in an extended call-and-response with his guitarist...and then did the same with his bassist...and then did it again with his drummer.  Here are a brief taste of his rendition of the Rick Derringer classic "Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo" and, of course, "Frankenstein."

Clip from "Rock And Roll Hoochie Coo"

Clip from "Frankenstein"

When the giant eyes with spiders for the pupils rose out of the stage, the crowd went wild.  It was time for Alice Cooper.  Vincent Furnier, a.k.a. Alice Cooper, is a true showman.  Known for his outrageous stage presentations, he did not disappoint and took the audience through campy horror set pieces and classics of hard rock.  Here you will see "Frankenstein," "I'm Eighteen," and "School's Out," which brought in part of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2."

"Frankenstein," "I'm Eighteen," and "School's Out"

I loved The Edgar Winter Band and was more than excited to see Alice Cooper for the second time, but the highlight for me was Deep Purple.  It was truly a bucket-list item for me.  Never having seen them in the '60s and '70s, I thought the chance had passed me by.  When they took the stage, I was positively giddy.  I was in the same place as Ian Gillan, Ian Paice, and Roger Glover, three members of the classic Mark II lineup!  There was Steve Morse playing guitar!  And Don Airey, who has played on the studio recording of the 1987 quintuple platinum Whitesnake album as well as with just about every name in classic rock, was right there on keyboards!

 
In all fairness, of all these talented legends, the vocal gift of Ian Gillan has suffered the most over time.  The high notes were not quite there, which is to be expected, and the energy was lacking, but at the end of the night, I'm not sure it mattered.  A nearly complete classic lineup of Deep Purple, including one founding member (Ian Paice), played classics like "Highway Star," "Fireball," "Strange Kind of Woman," "Pictures of Home," "Perfect Strangers," "Space Truckin'," "Hush," and the finale we all had waited for, "Smoke On The Water."  It may have been their Long Goodbye Tour, but fans will savor it for years to come.

On a personal note, I was glad to have my good buddy Sam along for the ride.  And yes, I did change the instrument lighting in my Mustang to purple for the evening!

 
And the evening was made even better when we ran into Hannah, one of my former students who is now a middle school teacher and was headed to the show herself with one of her colleagues!