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| | Arts Calendar / March 11 / Concerts |
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20:00 | The Deep Purple Members: Nick Simper & Don Airey (UK) |
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 For the first time two generations of Deep Purple musicians - Nick Simper and Don Airey - will meet at the Crocus City Hall with the best hits from the band's repertory including such songs as The Address, The Painter, Mandrake Root, Emmaretta, Wring That Neck, Bird Has Flown, Lalena, Chasing Shadows, Kentucky Woman and of course Hush which was created by the first members of Deep Purple and also compositions from such albums as Bananas, Rapture of the Deep, Now What!? which was released in 2000s. Nick Simper (bass and vocals) needs no introduction. His name is synonymous with one of the greatest rock bands ever, Deep Purple, of which he was a founder member. Deep Purple wouldn't be as massive as they were if not this band's first line-up's heavy leanings of bassist and a certain guitar player. He first played professionally with Johnny Kidd and The Pirates. After Kidd's death Simper briefly reactivated The Pirates (1966-1967) before joining the Garden, the backing band for The Flower Pot Men (1967-1968), where he played alongside Jon Lord. He also had a brief spell with Lord Sutch's Savages, a band that previously had included Ritchie Blackmore. Nick played on the first three albums of Deep Purple and played a significant role in their first successes. It was Nick that had the idea of covering the Joe South number "Hush" - Deep Purple's first (and last!) US number 1. The band recorded three albums in 18 months and played several tours in the US. After leaving Deep Purple, Nick played with Marsha Hunt, founded the prog rock band Warhorse, Fandango and, in the 90s, the Good Old Boys, which he still plays with. A few years ago, Austria's finest classic rock band Nasty Habits became aware of Nick Simper and invited him to play a session with them. They soon had the idea of presenting songs from the first three Deep Purple albums, Shades of Deep Purple, Book of Taliesyn and Deep Purple, for the loyal - and ever-growing - circle of fans old and new. Their 2009 live album was recorded at an all day Deep Purple convention on 3 May 2008 to mark the 40th anniversary of the first Deep Purple performance in Denmark in April 1968. In 2010 Simper and Nasty Habits played more shows presenting "The Deep Purple Mark One Songbook" in Austria, Switzerland, Hungary and Poland. With his keyboard work to be heard on over two hundred and eighty albums Don Airey can lay claim to being one of the most recorded players of all time. And this quantity of output comes, crucially, with a true seal of quality. Working with a true pantheon of legends throughout his time, Don has toured with the great and the good and had a box seat on some of the most amazing events of rock history. Don's remarkable journey began in Sunderland in the 1950s. Even as a young child, his musicality shone through, and he began learning classical piano at the age of three. He first got his hands on a Hammond organ as a teenager and never looked back, his first live dates were in the Working Men’s Clubs of the North East, he played with various local beat groups and, although continuing in formal training at both the respected Nottingham University and then the Royal Manchester Conservatoire, Don soon turned professional and spread his wings. His first stint with a major rock act came in '74 when he spent a year performing with Cozy Powell's Hammer, before moving on to join Jon Hiseman and Gary Moore in the fusion outfit Colosseum II. The band had three successful albums, and the majority of the line-up also recorded another collection that gave them a # 1 hit - named simply "Variations", it was a collection of variations on a theme of Paganini by one Andrew Lloyd Webber. Don performed on the Black Sabbath album Never Say Die, but then, in 1978, he teamed up once more with Cozy Powell, but also Ritchie Blackmore and Roger Glover in Rainbow. He enjoyed, of course, huge success over the next three years with massive albums Down to Earth, Difficult to Cure, hit singles "Since You been Gone", "All Night Long" and huge tours. It was in 2001 that the opportunity to join Deep Purple came his way. Don stood in - at a day's notice - for Jon Lord ahead of Deep Purple's Summer tour. When Jon then announced his retirement, Don was delighted to join the band fulltime in 2002 and, of course, hundreds of shows and three studio albums have followed, including the most recent, Now What?! which has gone gold all over Europe.
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