Deep Purple To The Rescue

Waking to a 2 a.m. phone call telling him Oasis wouldn’t appear at that day’s Rock Am See, it took Dieter Boes only a couple of hours to bring in Deep Purple as a replacement headliner.

“There’s not much you can do in terms of getting hold of people at that time of day, but then it struck me that Deep Purple had just played across the border in Switzerland,” he explained. “I tracked down the band’s tour manager and after I’d convinced him it wasn’t a joke, he got in touch with the individual members and they said they’d do it.”

Although Deep Purple isn’t an ideal replacement for Oasis in terms of musical style, Boes said he wasn’t exactly spoilt for choice and the U.K. rockers set went down a storm with the 20,000-plus crowd.

He said the Oasis split, which came just before the act was due on stage at the Rock En Seine festival in Paris, was “disgusting and showed absolutely no respect for the fans.”

“They were three shows from the end of the tour and only had to play about 90 minutes each time. I know that can seem like a long time to do something that you really don’t want to do, but to deal with it in that way was totally unprofessional.”

Boes said he didn’t put a refund policy in place but will wait to hear from any fans who bought a ticket and didn’t use it because of the Oasis cancellation.

The other acts helping to save the day on the shores of Lake Konstanz Aug. 29 included Mando Diao, The Hives, Kasabian, The Sounds and Sugarplum Fairy.