On the 16th we, that is Ravi and me, went to the press meet where the band was asked typical idiotic questions like "tell us about your NEW keyboardist" (He's Don fuckin Airey you dickwad and he's not new in the band anymore), "What do you think about Indian music?", "What makes you go on after all these years?" etc., After the press meet we got to meet the band and got all our the CDs signed.

The next day I went in the "limited access" area as a photographer (I'm not. I don't even have a camera. I borrowed a crappy 4 MP camera from my cousin for this) and was right in front of the stage for the show.

Now, I've seen the band twice before and thought they put on a great show both times but this time it was a totally rejuvenated band. They were just plain phenomenal. Steve Morse hardly plays our standard power chords but his rhythm playing is totally great. Full of sex and sophisticated rock'n'roll. He was playing a series of gorgeous signature Ernie Ball guitars through huge (4x12 cabs) engl setup and what I thought was the best live tones yet among the bands that have played here. The rhythm was screaming metal and the lead was ballsy, fat and sweet. I'll agree that he's better with the Dregs or with his solo band, but I'm convinced right now that he belongs in this band (by now), whatever it stands for, how much ever we disagree with it and how much ever I don't like the new material as much as some of the older ones.

They played 3 songs from the latest album Rapture of the Deep, one or two from Bananas including the super cool instrumental Contact Lost. I'm trying to remember what else they played... Perfect Strangers, Smoke on the water, Highway Star, Black Night, Space Trucking, Hush, When a blind man cries and some other MKII classics that's escaping this absent-minded head right now.

The whole band still has it in them. Paice is a monster and hits it with all the heavy groove that a rock drummer SHOULD have. Glover has always been an underrated rock bassist. Huge tone and top notch rock bass playing. Ian obviously has lost a lot but when I said rejuvenated earlier in the post, I had him in mind. He was just a sad sight the last time I saw them doing the Live 8 drill. But on this day, he sang his ass off as well as a frontman should.

Morse's solo breaks included him playing "Contact Lost" and a whole lot of cool parts from other bands including "Back in Black" and even "Sweet child o mine". He simply blew everyone away. Don Airey totally kicked ass throughout the show. I had a very slight doubt when he replaced Lord but it's cool. Everyone should, atleast by now, recognize that he's a legend too. He played most of Lord's parts note-to-note and patch-to-patch and seems like an integral part of the songwriting when it comes to the new material. He also had a biggish solo spot where he belted out a lot of cool stuff on all his keyboards including the Star Wars theme and the intro to Mr. Crowley.

Oh and this was by far the best sound that I've come across in a live setting. Everyone had mindblowing tones and every damn note played by everyone in the band was allowed to breathe.