It seems like Deep Purple have been part of our lives forever, their music so familiar it is woven into our DNA. Smoke On The Water may have found its power seemingly diminished a little through familiarity, having been played so much by every guitarist trying out a new Strat in a music shop and every rock cover band in the world. But seeing Purple in 2024 is a thrilling and majestic experience.
Deep Purple – Reef
The O2, London – 6 November 2024
Photography: Manuela Langotsch
Words: Paul Monkhouse
Whilst the line-up may have changed over the years, there is still the undoubted spectacle of seeing genuine rock legends playing some of the best rock songs ever written. Not only is their back catalogue the envy of practically every other band on the planet right now, they have never been content to rest on their laurels.
With their current (ahem) purple patch of great new albums, they are on commanding form.
Many bands seem lost in giant places like The O2, but Deep Purple fill the place with sound, light and sheer force of personality. Here, despite the large and crystal-clear video screens that dominate the top of the stage, the music does the talking.
The sight of the band in full flight is a truly visceral experience and something that is utterly transfixing. Shining new album =1 and the addition of guitarist Simon McBride find the outfit fired up and seemingly as hungry as they have ever been.
Following the ominous rolling thunder of Mars from Holtz’s The Planets Suite, the stage lit up as the opening notes of Highway Star roared out of the speakers, Ian Gillan sauntering onto the stage as his four bandmates join in the fun. 
As always, at the back Ian Paice is a ferocious timekeeper. The elements of jazz swing in his playing add style and colour to the driving attack in the same way that Charlie Watts propelled the Stones with effortless cool.
Equally unsung, Roger Glover holds down the bass with a sure hand and style, his playing an exercise of less is more.Glover exudes the same class as his partner in rhythm. 
Purple have never been about visual pyrotechnics or charging around the stage like other heavyweight acts like Iron Maiden or Judas Priest. For them, the spectacle has lived in the notes they play, and certainly, the interplay between Gillan’s vocals, the fretwork of McBride and Don Airey’s keys sets off the synapses like fireworks.
With twenty-three albums produced since the band was originally formed in 1968, the material is plentiful. This is a true career-spanning set with the glorious technicolour psychedelic pop of Hush to numbers like hard-rocking new classics like Portable Door and Lazy Sod.
Throughout, the guitar and solos are plentiful, the gentle nods and respect shown by the ‘new’ boys well placed as both McBride and Airey show exactly why they so richly deserved their place in the band. 
The keys player is of course a much-loved industry veteran whose musical CV reads like the Who’s Who of rock. His joining Purple to replace the late, great Jon Lord twenty-two years ago was a sublime fit.
Whilst the guitarist has massive shoes to fill himself, he does this by balancing nods to his predecessors but also adding his own fire and verve to the fretwork, his playing adding a lick of new paint to the material. 
The interplay between these two musicians, McBride’s emotive solo on When A Blind Man Cries and Airey’s cheeky waiter-delivered glass of wine during one of his pieces, shows the class and quality, not to mention the shared humour of the two. It’s a joy to watch.
No one comes close in the joke department to Ian Gillan, though. His rambling, shaggy dog (and polar bear) stories that introduce songs don’t just have the audience laughing but seemingly raise constantly quizzical smiles from his bandmates, too, amazement at the arc of the tales shown in their eyes. 
Whatever his scattergun approach to between-song banter, it cannot be denied that his voice is still absolutely astounding. Eschewing the staggeringly high notes of before, he has sensibly altered his tone and, in doing so, has avoided the pitfalls of some of his contemporaries. When he lets loose with the cry “into the fire” on the song of the same name, it is jaw-dropping.
The set goes by in a flash, time standing still as the outside world rages and falls apart. But somehow, the atmosphere inside the huge hall is one of love and just sheer glee at the visual and audible display coming from the far end of the arena. 
You are never going to please everyone with the setlist, but with not one dip throughout, any grumbles that a certain song wasn’t played would have been utterly churlish and seemingly not something the devoted thousands were even thinking of entertaining.
With the exuberant blast of the newer tracks and classics like Lazy, Space Truckin’ and Black Night peppered throughout the night, this was a display of surefooted dominance, and the band always seemed to be having as good a time as the sea of faces in front of them. 
Hopefully, there is plenty more gas in the tank, as in this form, Deep Purple is pretty much unbeatable. Tonight, even those seven opening notes of the most famous riff in rock history felt invigorating and goosebump-raising.
As it has always been, you do not just see Deep Purple. You experience them. Utterly magnificent.
Reef
Opening for the legends on these dates, West Country rockers Reef were an unusual choice. But the mix just seemed to work, the funk meets Britpop rock of the quartet hitting the right note.
Grabbing the night with both hands, the explosive grooves of Stone For Your Love and Naked got things swinging, frontman Gary Stringer doing his best dad dancing. 
It was not all massive rhythms, though, as the acoustic anthem I’ve Got Something To Say and the slow and shimmering Consideration cast their own spell, the latter’s refrain of “It’s gonna be alright” both a soothing balm and a promise.
Ballsy rocker Refugee highly impressed but the biggest cheers of the night came with the irresistible hit Place Your Hands and set closer The Chain, the Fleetwood Mac standard sounding fierce and full of fight.
They came, they saw, they rocked.
