Concert Review: Deep Purple at Xfinity Center, Mansfield, MA

Mark Kurtzner
7 hours ago
6 min read

Review by Mark Kurtzner and John Moore

Photos by Mark Kurtzner

On August 13, legendary heavy rock progenitors Deep Purple played the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, MA – near Boston. The opening bands were the current version of Kansas, as well as Jefferson Airplane spin-off band (not to be confused with Starship, also a spin-off band from JA) Jefferson Starship.

The Xfinity Center is a really nice venue, it's wide open and has a large gathering area with surrounding trees, along with many areas for food and drinks. In 2026, a Deep Purple crowd is an older audience, some not much younger than the band members themselves. For this show the venue only opened up a 3rd of the space, accommodating around 4,500 fans. Most of the crowd was as you guessed middle aged and older, but it was nice to see some younger fans and even a few younger kids. In days of yore – even into the late 1980s and 1990s, a DP crowd would be a raucous affair, with a big crush down the front, headbanging youth, and associated rowdiness. Things change with age. The crowd was engaged, probably a 3rd of them stood, but most remained seated except during the big hits when most decided to stand up.

Opening the show was Jefferson Starship, they played a quick 7 song set opening with "Find Your Way Back," "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now," the crowd favorite "White Rabbit," "We Built This City," "Jane," "Jet Pack," and ending with "Don't You Want Somebody to Love". Current members are David Freiberg (1974-1984, 2005 - present) (Bass, Vocals, and co-writer of the hit song "Jane"), Drummer Donny Baldwin (1982-1984, 2008 - present), Vocalist and guitarist Cathy Richardson (2008-2015, 2016 - present), Lead Guitarist Jude Gold (2012 - present) and Chris Smith on Bass & Keyboards (1998 - present). All these members have extensive experience playing together; they played a tight set and served as a good opening act.

Kansas was up next, ***Please note for this show they didn't allow any photographers, so my photos included are from a headline show they did in Albany NY 6 weeks ago***.

They sounded great playing many of their bigger hits from their long 50-year career during their 13-song set. They opened with "Point of No Return," followed by "Paradox," "Play the Game Tonight," "Fight Fire with Fire," "Jets Overhead," "The Wall," "Song for America," Crowd favorite and their biggest hit "Dust in the Wind," "Hold On," "Down the Road," "Portrait," "Miracles Out of Nowhere," and closed with "Carry On Wayward Son". They are a large band with 8 members all playing intricate parts leading to the Kansas sound. The longest-serving member is drummer Phil Ehart. Here are the other members: Ronnie Platt (Lead and backing vocals & keyboards), Tom Brislin (keyboards, backing and lead vocals), guitarists Zak Rizvi and Scott Bernard, Joe Deninzon (Violin, rhythm guitar & backing vocals), Dan McGowan (bass + backing & lead vocals), and 2nd drummer Eric Holmquist. I enjoyed their set - the crowd did as well—but everyone was ready for the headliner and the main reason I wanted to cover this show: the legendary and great Deep Purple.

I've been excited about this show for months. I've always been a Deep Purple fan and never had a chance to photograph them during the late 80s and early 90's when I was covering concerts. As bands get older I am doing everything possible to make sure that I get to cover them and they definitely didn't disappoint—I was honored to cover such a great band!

Anyway, what matters: the band and the music. Ian Gillan was great. He’s 80 years old now (turning 81 a few days after this show), and maybe his gait was more measured, perhaps his hand was shaking a bit while he gripped the mike, certainly the once-legendary mane of hair has receded slightly, and the unholy howl of “Child in Time”, “Strange Kind of Woman” and “Disturbing the Priest” has left the building, but he worked the stage, with witty between-song banter. And his voice is still excellent, albeit without the shrieks, whoops and screeches of yore. Drummer Ian Paice is just killer, a master at his craft and bassist Roger Glover is stalwart and active as always, and looks the same, but for the grey hair and beard, as the guy I first saw play live with Rainbow 40+ years back. Keyboardist Don Airey – an ex-Rainbow man himself, and longtime replacement for now-deceased DP keyboard legend Jon Lord – is still there, a little old Englishman but excellent as always. And on guitar (replacing Steve Morse a few years ago, who himself replaced Joe Satriani in the mid-90s, who in turn replaced iconic DP guitarist Ritchie Blackmore) is Irishman Simon McBride, really good player, as you’d have to be for this band – he’s probably in his 50s, so a bit younger than the others. Trivia: Simon was also a latter-day member of the Northern Irish NWOBHM heroes Sweet Savage, in place of Vivian Campbell, and he played on a1996 album by them (‘Killingtime’) as a fresh-faced young guitarist. So, he’s had some experience replacing iconic guitar players.

The clad-in-black elephant in the room, of course, was Blackmore himself. Against all expectations, and perhaps proving that pigs can fly and hell has, in fact, frozen over, Ritchie joined his former bandmates at Jones Beach in Long Island the night before this show and stunned the crowd – and rock fans the world over – by jamming “Smoke on the Water”, his first appearance with the band since he quit in 1993, followed by years of acrimony (at worst) and pointedly ignoring each other (at best). However, in Mansfield, the band were back to regular programming and there was no Blackmore – he lives on Long Island, Jones Beach is local for him, and he joined his old comrades for one night only.

Setlist: not a nostalgia-friendly crowd-pleasing affair. DP, like younger contemporaries Iron Maiden, aren’t here to play you the old hits and nothing but. Deep Purple still regularly release new music. They have a new record, ‘Splat!’, out recently. Of course, old standard “Highway Star” started it off in classic fashion, killer as always, straight into a newer tune (“A Bit on the Side”, from previous LP ‘+ 1’). And they’re promoting a new record, and played three tunes off the new LP, ‘Splat!’ (“Arrogant Boy”, “Diablo” and as first encore the marvelously-named and thirst-inducing “Guinnesis”), and two from ‘= 1’ (“Lazy Sod” in addition to the aforementioned “A Bit…”). But almost no one knew these songs other than the hard core's, let’s be fair. Of course they did play some old tunes, but to their credit, they showed no shyness about including at least one relatively deep older track: “Into the Fire” from ‘In Rock’ was trotted out early, an absolutely crushing rendition and a show highlight for me. Gillan also knocked it out of the park for “When a Blind Man Cries,” another deep cut off ‘Machine Head’ – the man is an amazing singer. It has always been so.

It seems to be a common tale with the older artists doing guitar & keyboard solos, usually I like them to a certain degree but I'd rather hear more songs but for tonight Simon's guitar solo happened while I was leaving the photo pit, I’m sure these solos are necessary for the other band members to get a quick breather. McBride’s a great player, I'm sure that his solo was played to perfection. Usually I'm bored of keyboard solos, however this time I enjoyed Don Airey's 2nd solo, his 1st was a bit boring, He should have did just one solo. Maybe it's because he's an iconic hard rock keyboardist, perhaps only eclipsed by his predecessor, or maybe because he's just getting older like the rest of the band, but he sure can play. I would have liked just one solo and another Purple song.

So they really didn’t bother with the hits too much, but “Lazy” was in there mid-set, and at the end of the show the 80s hit “Perfect Strangers” was played – just added to the set the night before in Long Island – and I absolutely loved this addition to the set as did the crowd. Then rollicking standard “Space Truckin’” had the audience's blood pumping near the end, and the inevitable “Smoke on the Water” to finish the regular set. The encore was cool, as noted above excellent new number “Guinnesis” first (although maybe that earlier in the set and a vintage crowd-pleaser at encore time would have went down better), and early hit “Hush” ending it.

Excellent gig. The veterans are mighty and can still do damage. All hail Gillan, Glover, Paice, Airey and McBride.