Nick Simper and Nasty Habits, Plock, Poland - 10.10.2009
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deepestman
Oct 13, 2009, 1:49:55 PM10/13/09
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Nick Simper & Nasty Habits
Venue: Dom Technika
City: Plock
Country: Poland
Date: 10.10.2009
‘And The Address’, ‘The Painter’, ‘Chasing Shadows’, ‘Mandrake Root’,
‘Emmaretta’, ‘The Bird Has Flown’, ‘Hush’, ‘Kentucky Woman’, ‘Lalena’,
‘Wring That Neck’, ‘Why Didn’t Rosemary’, ‘Roadhouse Blues’ … Those
were the titles presented to us by Nick Simper and Nasty Habits. Even
in my wildest dreams I have never thought that one day I will
experience the songs of Mark 1 live. But I have, and it has been a
fantastic, fruitful experience. Why fruitful you might ask. Simply
because after the show I regained my forgotten love for Mark 1, and
since Saturday I have given a spin to Deep Purple’s first three albums
more than 20 times.
Was it worth to travel almost 400 km to see Nick and the Habits?
Without a doubt. I am used to travelling and being on the road, but in
my book the far away concert places are only reserved to the band I
dearly love. Deep Purple, that is. So it was really painful to get up
that chilly Saturday morning, take a train to Warsaw, then a bus to
Plock. I came to the city two hours before Simper’s meeting with fans
so I decided to text my friend and we met. She is quite ignorant as
far as rock music is concerned but we had a fantastic talk that
brought us the memories of our studies, the wild times we shared. We
treated ourselves to a warm coffee and the time swiftly passed. Then
after saying good-bye I headed for the school where the meeting was
supposed to take place.
Deep Purple Fan Club Poland organized the gig (as it was in the case
of Blackmore’s Night and Jon Lord) and it is really fascinating that
just within a year Plock has guested three former Purple musicians. At
4 pm the meeting started. Some people prepared questions for Nick,
most of them were pretty standard as ‘What kept you busy after Deep
Purple?’ or ‘Why there is no live evidence of Warhorse?’ Nick gave a
satisfactory answer to all the questions, and then all of the people
present had a chance to chat with him a bit, take a photo and give him
some things to be signed. To me Nick came across as a humble, witty,
and well-rounded individual. ‘What a nice man’ – the impression lasted
in me while I was leaving the school.
Before the main dish, we got to hear Love De Vice, Polish progressive
rock band that has just made a debut album. It was not my cup of tea,
as I expected to see some nice, old rock’n’roll that would warm up the
audience before the main show. What we got was not a very good mixture
of Pink Floyd and Pendragon, and though the singer looked similar to
Bruce Dickinson, his physical appearance is where the similarity
vanishes. The songs they played were quite long, I do not mind lengthy
compositions, but they just could not control the music. To my ears
the instruments were not properly put in tune with each other, and
sometimes they did not know where the music was leading them. So after
40 minutes of something which was supposed to be progressive rock they
thankfully went off the stage.
Nick and Nasty Habits were on stage in the nick of time (no pun
intended). And you could tell it from the first note that it was going
to be a great show, and the Habits are top notch musicians though as I
got to know it later, they play music just as a hobby, and they do
have regular jobs. Cheers to them! For the first time in my life I had
an opportunity to see how Mark 1 songs work in the live surrounding.
Well, they do. And what is more, they do work stunningly good. Nasty
Habits were not trying to copy the original arrangements, and even
changed a bit in the organ and guitar solos. In all, they put their
originality into Purple songs, so thanks to that the show belonged to
them and was fresh. I mean you did not have a feeling that those guys
were just playing to get some extra money. They were doing it out of
love, and they had a very good fun on stage especially their singer
Christian Schmid who was literally all over the place! Once you saw
him on one side of the stage, then on the other, and you were standing
with your jaw dropped when you saw him performing on your table and
shaking hands with people. He really was fooling around, and even
shared a tambourine with some of the beautiful part of the audience.
Then he invited the girls on stage. They surely must have had a blast!
All of them! Nasty Habits are true professionals, they have been
around for 20 years now, so they know how to play a lick or two. Nick
knows too. As bass player he impressed me with his spare playing yet
and the same time he was able to produce a full, fat bass sound. His
playing complimented Peter Brkusic drumming and the two constituted a
solid rhythm section. During the bass solo Nick was able to go beyond
the ordinary bass soloing and presented to us a sequence of melodic
and abstract sounds. Helmut Puschacher, their keyboardist, managed to
get from his organ a fantastic sound very reminiscent of Jon Lord’s
but during his solo spot he appeared to be an individual musician with
variety of musical interests. The guitarist, Christian Heissenberger,
played Ritchie’s parts with a lot of ease and touched me with his
interpretation of ‘Lalena’.
My personal favourites from the set were: ‘The Painter’, ‘Mandrake
Root’, ‘Kentucky Woman’, ‘Wring That Neck’, ‘And The Address’,
‘Lalena’, ‘Emaretta’, ‘The Bird Has Flown’, ‘Chasing Shadows’, ‘Why
Didn’t Rosemary’ and the cracking version of The Doors’ ‘Roadhouse
Blues’. Oooops, I think I have mentioned them all. But yes, all are
worth mentioning as they were fascinating and I had a feeling I have
covered the part of Deep Purple which was a bit forgotten. First and
foremost, the songs started to live their own life within me and that
is the biggest plus of the event. The other is that the show was
recorded and the DVD with soundboard sound will be available before
Christmas.
When you have a chance to see Nick and the Habits performing Mark 1
stuff, just go and you will treat yourself to a nice bunch of
musicians whose show is a manifest of love for music and a refreshment
of the Purple tunes which will never be played by the current Purple
line up. I think this sole reason is enough!
Venue: Dom Technika
City: Plock
Country: Poland
Date: 10.10.2009
‘And The Address’, ‘The Painter’, ‘Chasing Shadows’, ‘Mandrake Root’,
‘Emmaretta’, ‘The Bird Has Flown’, ‘Hush’, ‘Kentucky Woman’, ‘Lalena’,
‘Wring That Neck’, ‘Why Didn’t Rosemary’, ‘Roadhouse Blues’ … Those
were the titles presented to us by Nick Simper and Nasty Habits. Even
in my wildest dreams I have never thought that one day I will
experience the songs of Mark 1 live. But I have, and it has been a
fantastic, fruitful experience. Why fruitful you might ask. Simply
because after the show I regained my forgotten love for Mark 1, and
since Saturday I have given a spin to Deep Purple’s first three albums
more than 20 times.
Was it worth to travel almost 400 km to see Nick and the Habits?
Without a doubt. I am used to travelling and being on the road, but in
my book the far away concert places are only reserved to the band I
dearly love. Deep Purple, that is. So it was really painful to get up
that chilly Saturday morning, take a train to Warsaw, then a bus to
Plock. I came to the city two hours before Simper’s meeting with fans
so I decided to text my friend and we met. She is quite ignorant as
far as rock music is concerned but we had a fantastic talk that
brought us the memories of our studies, the wild times we shared. We
treated ourselves to a warm coffee and the time swiftly passed. Then
after saying good-bye I headed for the school where the meeting was
supposed to take place.
Deep Purple Fan Club Poland organized the gig (as it was in the case
of Blackmore’s Night and Jon Lord) and it is really fascinating that
just within a year Plock has guested three former Purple musicians. At
4 pm the meeting started. Some people prepared questions for Nick,
most of them were pretty standard as ‘What kept you busy after Deep
Purple?’ or ‘Why there is no live evidence of Warhorse?’ Nick gave a
satisfactory answer to all the questions, and then all of the people
present had a chance to chat with him a bit, take a photo and give him
some things to be signed. To me Nick came across as a humble, witty,
and well-rounded individual. ‘What a nice man’ – the impression lasted
in me while I was leaving the school.
Before the main dish, we got to hear Love De Vice, Polish progressive
rock band that has just made a debut album. It was not my cup of tea,
as I expected to see some nice, old rock’n’roll that would warm up the
audience before the main show. What we got was not a very good mixture
of Pink Floyd and Pendragon, and though the singer looked similar to
Bruce Dickinson, his physical appearance is where the similarity
vanishes. The songs they played were quite long, I do not mind lengthy
compositions, but they just could not control the music. To my ears
the instruments were not properly put in tune with each other, and
sometimes they did not know where the music was leading them. So after
40 minutes of something which was supposed to be progressive rock they
thankfully went off the stage.
Nick and Nasty Habits were on stage in the nick of time (no pun
intended). And you could tell it from the first note that it was going
to be a great show, and the Habits are top notch musicians though as I
got to know it later, they play music just as a hobby, and they do
have regular jobs. Cheers to them! For the first time in my life I had
an opportunity to see how Mark 1 songs work in the live surrounding.
Well, they do. And what is more, they do work stunningly good. Nasty
Habits were not trying to copy the original arrangements, and even
changed a bit in the organ and guitar solos. In all, they put their
originality into Purple songs, so thanks to that the show belonged to
them and was fresh. I mean you did not have a feeling that those guys
were just playing to get some extra money. They were doing it out of
love, and they had a very good fun on stage especially their singer
Christian Schmid who was literally all over the place! Once you saw
him on one side of the stage, then on the other, and you were standing
with your jaw dropped when you saw him performing on your table and
shaking hands with people. He really was fooling around, and even
shared a tambourine with some of the beautiful part of the audience.
Then he invited the girls on stage. They surely must have had a blast!
All of them! Nasty Habits are true professionals, they have been
around for 20 years now, so they know how to play a lick or two. Nick
knows too. As bass player he impressed me with his spare playing yet
and the same time he was able to produce a full, fat bass sound. His
playing complimented Peter Brkusic drumming and the two constituted a
solid rhythm section. During the bass solo Nick was able to go beyond
the ordinary bass soloing and presented to us a sequence of melodic
and abstract sounds. Helmut Puschacher, their keyboardist, managed to
get from his organ a fantastic sound very reminiscent of Jon Lord’s
but during his solo spot he appeared to be an individual musician with
variety of musical interests. The guitarist, Christian Heissenberger,
played Ritchie’s parts with a lot of ease and touched me with his
interpretation of ‘Lalena’.
My personal favourites from the set were: ‘The Painter’, ‘Mandrake
Root’, ‘Kentucky Woman’, ‘Wring That Neck’, ‘And The Address’,
‘Lalena’, ‘Emaretta’, ‘The Bird Has Flown’, ‘Chasing Shadows’, ‘Why
Didn’t Rosemary’ and the cracking version of The Doors’ ‘Roadhouse
Blues’. Oooops, I think I have mentioned them all. But yes, all are
worth mentioning as they were fascinating and I had a feeling I have
covered the part of Deep Purple which was a bit forgotten. First and
foremost, the songs started to live their own life within me and that
is the biggest plus of the event. The other is that the show was
recorded and the DVD with soundboard sound will be available before
Christmas.
When you have a chance to see Nick and the Habits performing Mark 1
stuff, just go and you will treat yourself to a nice bunch of
musicians whose show is a manifest of love for music and a refreshment
of the Purple tunes which will never be played by the current Purple
line up. I think this sole reason is enough!
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