Track 1. Black Night (Intro: The Way to...)

After much thoughts about the price for this show I decided to buy a ticket and visit ot, because not every day iconic band, which became legends during their lifetime and on the music of which I, in fact, grew up, come to Israel. The only thing I was afraid of was, was that they would mostly play songs from the latest albums that I don't really like. So, sitting in a minibus at sunset, my body headed to Tel Aviv and my soul was mentally preparing for the performance, because there was no feeling, that I was about to see rock legends on stage. There were not as many people in front of the club 15 minutes before the start. After quick picking up a pre-ordered ticket I rushed to the club, where, by the way, I had never been before.

Track 2. Never Before (The Club)

As I said, I have never been to the Hangar 11 club. It turned out to be a rather spacious club with a huge dancefloor, a high large stage and seating around the perimeter of the dance floor so that the atmosphere of a half-stadium concert was generated. The bar sold a bunch of alcoholic drinks and only one type of local beer, so I limited myself to just one glass, although I wanted more. But the toilet for such a club was too small. The queue was even in the men's, not to mention the women's. But in general, the club made a good impression.

Track 3. Strange Kind of Woman (The Audience)

When I got to the dancefloor, I saw a small group of people at the stage and dreary-looking individuals in the seats (who the hell goes to a rock concert to sit???). After such a picture I thought: "Kinda poor turnout” ... Deep Purple gave two shows in Israel before and I already thought that everyone, who wanted to see them live, already did. The crowd simply killed my imagination with its diversity: local wannabe arses, old Soviet era rockers, young emo-kids, Israeli Moroccans with the common “bro” approach and three-kilogram chains around their necks, intelligentsia in glasses dressed in expensive suits, religious Jews (I didn’t expect to see that at all on Deep Purple show), but most of all I was killed by a group of Ethiopians (!!!) standing peacefully in the corner and waiting for the show. I even saw a couple of people of Arab nationality. In a word, the audience of all generations, all religions and all segments of the population. I don't know if this is good or bad. Either people started listening to normal music, or Deep Purple became pop. Meanwhile, the bored crowd began to warm themselves up with applause and whistles. Soon after that the lights on the stage and in the hall was turned off ...

Track 4. Perfect Strangers (RedBand)

First, strange identically dressed people with dolls appeared on the stage and sat down on pre-arranged chairs. As it turned out, it was a warm-up. A rather nice rock band from a local Israeli rock TV series (yes, now you can use such a term) with mediocre, but high-quality music, where all the real members were hidden behind dolls that somehow reminded me of the good old Muppet Show. On vocals there was a crazy pop-eyed bearded man, on guitar - a long-haired freak, on drums - a dude who looked like Gonzo from the Muppet Show (only his nose was a normal length) and on back vocals was ... a mouse with a suiting squeaky mouse voice. The bearded man was jeering at other band members between songs, especially at the mouse, and teased the staff. The music was quite unpretentious and did not pretend to be a masterpiece, but everything that happened around made me smile throughout the entire performance. RedBand performed 4 or 5 songs in total. As for me, the warm-up was successful, especially after the closing cover-version of Rage Against the Machine’s hit "Killing in the Name of...". At that moment I realized, that the club was filled to capacity. ...

Track 5. Hightway Star (Deep Purple)

The kings of hard rock took the stage suddenly and without much show off. The first impression is shock. Yes, I was really shocked by how much older Ian Gillan looks. I have not seen photos of Deep Purple from their concerts for a long time and the photographers did a good job at photo sessions from new albums so it was not so obvious about the age of band members. Everything else remained with Gillan - charisma, the ability to turn on the crowd and a huge experience and professionality. The handsome Steve Morse stood out from all other band members, who did not stop smiling throughout the entire performance, obviously enjoying it. My fears about the tracklist was wrong, which pleased me most of all. Deep Purple have played all their biggest hits (except "Child in Time", which most probably is already hard for Gillan to sing), diluting them with a couple of new songs and a couple of instrumentals. Of course, as in every rock concert, each participant gave everything he could. The main part was taken over by Steve Morse as the youngest and freshest of all. But Don Airey gave the most powerful and exciting show. Deep purple, of course, did not overlook “Hava Nagila”. But personally, I liked the most the experiments with different sound effects and organ sounding keyboards. Morse's solos were very cool and professional, but Blackmore, in my opinion, he did not surpass. For my opinion Morse is more a shredder. Blackmore is a virtuoso. Although there were moments when Morse did very soulful things. Ian Paice also performed killer solos And Roger Glover didn't disappoint. But the brightest impressions still remained from Airy and Morse. Deep Purple ended the main part of the show with an improvisational version of "Smoke on the Water". They came out for an encore once, but how. The combined version of "Hush" and "Black Night" with the participation of the public in this action became the apogee of the show of rock legends.

Track 6. Smoke on the Water (In the End)

Masterpiece. Not a bit sorry about the spent money. If suddenly you ever find yourself in the position of such a choice, simply buy and go.

Track 7. Pictures of Home (Outro)

Good thing I don't have a car, because It was almost impossible to leave the parking lot near the club and the nearby streets after the concert ended. I decided not to take a taxi from the club in order to avoid the next exorbitant prices, but moved to another quarter of Tel Aviv. In a nutshell: a perfect sound, a packed club, a masterpiece performance. Israel loves Deep Purple and hopefully Deep Purple loves Israel...