When Glenn Hughes announced he would be bringing his Deep Purple tribute tour to Paris I wasn’t overly excited. I knew the setlist would be great but it wasn’t enough to make me buy a ticket. I would much rather see him with Black Country Communion or play a regular solo show. But I ended up getting comped so why not?
It was a pretty good show overall, the guy is still in fine voice. His ultra-treble yelps still feel like sandpaper on the tip of my dick sometimes but that heals quickly and I’m not using it much these days anyway.
It was very cool getting to hear Mistreated and Gettin’ Tighter. Less obvious was the inclusion of Smoke on the Water and Highways Star. I thought he’d stick to the repertoire of Mark III & IV but evidently he wanted to recreate the experience of a mid-seventies Purple concert, which is fair enough.
But that’s where he crosse the line between ex-band member playing his old band’s songs and full on tribute act. First the guy insist on trying to look like he did back then, wearing his hair longer than he has in decades and wearing hippie clothing the likes of which he hasn’t worn since that time.
All that could be ignored and dismissed as merely cosmetics but the real problem is that his keyboardist and guitarist replicated note-for-note some of the jams that Jon Lord and Richie Blackmore improvised at the famed California Jam concert, even following Smoke on the Water with Georgia on my Mind like they did with Tommy Bolin… That was all too much and kind of a shame because Glenn Hughes’ legacy is broader than those few years. Still a very decent show and I had a good time with the help of my good friend Bourbon, but I’m hoping the guy comes back to play something a little less stale.
