Singapore by XpatXperience

Fuelled by the great success of their concert in Singapore 2 years ago, the legendary British rock formation Deep Purple returned here on 10 April to promote their newest album 'Bananas'. With a new show and new songs, Deep Purple brought more than 7000 people on its feet in a packed Fort Canning Park for an evening of true rock music under a clear, star-filled sky.

Deep Purple arrived in Singapore on Thursday from their tour in China, and welcomed press and fans at a relaxed and entertaining press conference at Carnegies, where the band exchanged their musical instruments for a creative brush with a fiberglass lion! The life-size lion, created by Lasalle-Sia and the band, is part of the SingArt exhibition of wild creativity which showcases the artistic talents of local and international personalities. Roger Glover, Deep Purple's bassist, did not have to think long about the choice of color for the band's banana-decorated lion.

The band was excited to be back in Singapore and looked forward to the concert, to promote what Ian Gillan stated as 'the best album we ever made'. Ian Gillan: "My wife doesn't care much for our music, but our latest album 'Bananas' has not been out of our CD-player ever since it was released!". Looking back at the more conservative days in Singapore and Malaysia, the band jokingly recollected memories of the reaction of the governments at the idea of men with long hair playing rock music concerts. Times have certainly changed, and when questioned whether the band had become more decent, Roger Glover answered with his usual wit: "nah, I think Singapore has just become raunchier!"

After a spectacular support act by the newcomers SingleMindTrack and a superb show by Jimi Hendrix's second cousin, Riki Hendrix, Deep Purple kicked off the show 7000 fans had been waiting for, and filled the evening with 4 decades of trend-setting rock music. Thanks to the perfect organization by the promoters, LAMC Productions, the evening turned out to be a grand success.

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