Deep Purple at the FOX Theatre

Last night was different. I went over to Detroit and checked out legendary "heavy metal" band, Deep Purple. It was with Ian Gillan and everything.

I almost forgot about the show. My roommate had some of his buddies over one night and they got onto the computer and were randomly looking for shows coming up in or around Detroit. My roommate Bubbles (no, not Micheal Jackson's orphaned chimp. That would be Mr. Bubbles-no, Bubbles is a dude who just is. You may remember him from the 2010 Florida trip post. He is named as such because of his resemblance to the "Bubbles" character on Trailer Park Boys) discovered with shock and awe that one of his favourite bands was going to be in Detroit and he didn't know about it. So it goes without saying that he easily talked his buddies into throwing down the 70 dollars and when he asked me I simply said I was in without really thinking about it, which received an "atta boy" from the Bubbster. And with that we all agreed to be like millions of concert-goers to openly and willingly allow ourselves to get anally raped by TicketMaster once again.

But up until the night before the show, I totally forgot about it. Luckily I had just gotten paid, so I paid off Bubbs (which is weird, because as of this writing-the night after the show remember) I was the only one that squared up with Bubbs.

But anyways about the show.
We got there in pretty good time. We didn't really have any hassles at the border, or getting our tickets because they had to be left at Will Call due to the Canadian Post national strike. Therefore since our tickets couldn't be mailed to us so Bubbs made the phone monkeys understand that we would have to pick them up. When we did all it was a piece of paper with a note telling the ticket checkers and ushers past them that we had "tickets" we just didn't have tickets. But there was no problem as we were shown to our seats. At this point I must add, although I had been to the FOX Theatre once prior for the WWE Hall of Fame ceremonies the night before WrestleMania 23 from Detroit, I never really examined the many and great sculptures and tapestries and big ol' what appeared to be a giant Indian disco ball, which I somehow remembered being a chandelier for some reason. Ah, a big theater, large object hanging from the middle of the raised ceiling giving off light and all that.

The opening band was surprisingly good and greeted by the fans with a couple of ovations, especially at the end of their set when they did a Boston medley including "More Than a Feeling", "Peace of Mind", "Foreplay/Long Time", "Rock and Roll Band"and "Smokin'." In fact, the band, Ernie and the Automatics have two members from the original band Boston, Guitarist Barry Goudreau and drummer Sib Hashian.

Deep Purple hit the stage about 15 minutes after E&TA's departure and opened with one of their best, "Space Truckin'." In fact, they did all their hits including, "Highway Star," "Lazy," "My Woman from Tokyo" and "Smoke on the Water, among others of course.

The shirts were cheap. I only paid $25 for my basic black tee with the tour dates on the back. I usually go for those, as I like to see either my city of residence or whatever city I was in to see the show on the shirt. I don't know; narcissistic history, right?
The downer is, since we couldn't get actual tickets mailed to us, I now have no memorabilia from the show (other than the shirt-GRRR.) I usually would frame it or stick it in a photo album with my other tickets. But since I lost all my other concert tickets from the past (other than recent KISS and Nickelback ones) including KISS, Metallica, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney (yes, talk about OUCH!) in a move years ago, I figure this probably won't kill me either. Sucks tho'.

Anyways, overall a pretty good show with an opening band that didn't make me want to wretch.