(Live Review) DEEP PURPLE + YES - Tinley Park, Ill. (8/23/24)

By

The Beard & Little Johnny

Greetings friends, fans, and followers, it is your dynamic reviewing duo, The Beard & Little Johnny and we are reporting from a milestone evening here at the Credit Union One Amphitheater in Tinley Park, Illinois. This will be our 50th live show event of 2024 and what a great lineup to celebrate it. Tonight, we shall review hard rock giants the mighty Deep Purple. Special guests, the prog music icons of the 1970’s Yes. 

Now, both Deep Purple & Yes got their starts all the way back in 1968, (which was well before Little Johnny got his life start, and even the ancient grizzled Beard was only a mere two years old back in those bygone days of yore, but it was with great pleasure and relish that on the way there I educated the lad on just how influential both bands were to music in the 70’s. The big question to be answered tonight, how would these more than half century old warhorses stand up?

HANNAH WICKLUND

Before we could answer that question, there was an unbilled thirty-minute set from Nashville artist Hannah Wicklund who began with some acoustic material. Ultimately harmless, she mostly sang to people looking for and finding their seats. Wicklund played some songs and shilled a bit for her music, (The Prize 2023), her fragrance (Forest Fairy #1), and her art (Patterns of My Youth), all allegedly for sale in the merchandise area. Neither Johnny nor I made it over there. Again, this was almost like some countrified cocktail music before the main event. 70/100. (Ed: It amazes me that they didn't allow an up and coming hard rock outfit the chance to open instead. She was totally inapproriate for the crowd.)

YES    

Yes suffers from the age-old debate concerning when a band is not really “that” band any longer. Although in their 55-year history, Yes has had at least twenty members, the core is generally thought to involve three main people. Jon Anderson (Lead Vocals) Rick Wakeman (Keyboards), and Steve Howe (Guitar) ... with Chris Squire (primary bassist) and Allen White (primary drummer). Of this group, Steve Howe is the only one touring under this manifestation of Yes, so it is fair game to say this is a Yes tribute with one original member.

Current keyboardist Geoff Downs & vocalist Jon Davison have been with this iteration since 2012, so there IS some longevity here, although mostly they are performing music they did not write or create, and so by that definition they are still largely cover artists, albeit skilled ones.

The Beard only has one Yes CD, and it is a double greatest hits package, so clearly I am not qualified to speak on the specifics of how Yes changed the progressive rock direction in music with albums like Fragile and Tales from Topographic Oceans. I know their “hits” and briefly followed them during their MTV 90125 period in the early 1980’s where they would enjoy their only number one single “Owner of a Lonely Heart.” (Ed: Bleh.)  

Yes has gone on to release many more albums including five in the 1990’s and five more since 2000. Songs performed from the last three (all since 2014) would be considered (IMO) as legitimate to “this” version of Yes.

Jon Davidson has the unique style voice of Jon Anderson. On many numbers though, I found the rest kind of sloppy. Steve Howe gets a pass as he is the guy who wrote ALL the material being played and can thus play it however he wants. Additionally, at 77 years of age, Howe still plays well even if his fingers do not move as effortlessly as they once did.

The keys of Geoff Downes were skilled, but as you listened it was evident it was NOT Rick Wakeman. Sometimes a talent is irreplaceable. On any songs from post 2014, I would have evaluated them as Yes. Since their entire set was material released between 1971-1980, this was a very decent Yes tribute band (with the original guitar player).

 Songs I knew included “I’ve Seen All Good People” (7/10), “Yours is No Disgrace” (8/10) “Roundabout” (7/10) and “Starship Troopers” (8.5/10) and thanks to the jackass who stood up two rows in front of me and decided he needed THE ENTIRE FREAKING SONG on his phone. I wanted Little Johnny to chuck something at his stupid head.

Truthfully, a few of the numbers I didn’t know ended up being the most enjoyable since, (not knowing them), I could kind of convince myself they were dead-on replicas of the original live sound. “Siberian Khatru” was really a fitting example of progressive rock full of timing changes and complicated playing.

Ultimately, for my first time seeing them Yes was enjoyable and decent, just not amazing, (which is what my basic opinion of Yes is anyway so somehow that seems appropriate.) Let’s call it 80/100.

What say you Johnny? “Man Beard, those songs were long and just wandered all over the place. I didn’t really get what they were singing about most of the time but all those landscapes on the backdrops, you know the ones with the UFO mushrooms and trees in the sky and stuff was kind of cool.” Thanks Johnny.

DEEP PURPLE

Deep Purple are 3/5th pure, still featuring Ian Gillian on vocals, Roger Glover on bass, and Ian Paice on drums so they are as legit as they can be given Richie Blackmore (guitar) is not ever coming back and Jon Lord (keyboards) passed away in 2012. New keyboardist Don Airey took over back in 2002 (when Lord developed health issues) and has been the man for 22 years now. Simon McBride is the one really new guy (having started just two years ago after Purple’s long time guitarist Steve Morse left the band to be with his wife during her battle with cancer.) Like Yes, Deep Purple has had ten former members, (along with the current touring five), during their 55-year careers and have also released twenty-three albums including “=1” their latest in 2024.

 Not surprisingly Deep Purple came out of the box hot with “Highway Star” which had some nice punch for a group of guys that averaged seventy years of age. Ian still can sing well even if he doesn’t hit the dog whistle notes any longer, and Don Airey does a great Jon Lord impersonation. (Ed: Gillan really struggled on this track at the Toronto gig.) “A Bit on the Side” was our first foray into the new album and it was not bad at all. Largely the typical blues rock sound with a lot of guitar and keyboard that makes up the Purple catalog. Then it was back to classic Purple with “Into the Fire” from “In Rock” before a guitar solo from McBride using a lot of the classical music stylings Richie Blackmore loved to experiment with. “Uncommon Man” an odd selection from 2013’s “Now What” would follow before another new track “Lazy Sod.”

Airey jammed out for a bit showing his wizardry on the keys before the band broke into classic fan favorite “Lazy.” Then, once again, it was back to the new album for “Show me” and “Portable Door” before pulling out “Anya” from 1993’s “The Battle Rages.” (Ed: The highlight for me in Toronto.) Another Airey keyboard solo, and one more from the new album “Bleeding Obviously” would occur before finally throwing open the doors to the fan favorites.

“Space Trucking”, “Smoke on the Water”, “Hush” and “Black Night” would send the fans home happy and filled with Purple-tinged memories and smoke laden solos. Honestly, Deep Purple was a lot better than I expected. Admittedly, the youngest member (McBride) managed the heaviest lifting with lots of guitar work, but Gillan was still very entertaining, even breaking out the harp for a solo spot during “Lazy.” There were a few disappointments. Nothing from Perfect Strangers and no "Burn", but even so, there was "Smoke on the Water" and "Space Trucking".

Deep Purple exceeded the expectation I walked in with and some of the new stuff was actually good. For a stage full of musicians well past social security collecting age, my hats off to them. Cracking a cold one for the giants of hard rock, Deep Purple 93/100.

Go for it Johnny. “A little long winded and pretentious on all the solos. I guess that’s why you liked them so much Beard. Old people do go on and on and on. Still, those big hits were fun to hear and like you always say, after one hundred cover acts having butchered these songs, at least this time we heard 'em from the dudes who actually wrote them and that was cool.” You are learning Little Dude.

This wraps up our 50th show, but there is plenty of year, and plenty of metal left to go see, so remember to check us out every Wednesday at your home for metal, doom, punk, and the best in new stuff. The Mighty Decibel. Check out our TikTok page at thebeard0728 for the latest in videos from all the bands we cover and follow Mark McQueen on Facebook for the weekly non-metal column.

Until next time, this is the Beard & Little Johnny saying ... Live Life, Stay Heavy and Horns Up!!!