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Blackmore's
Night UK Tour Reports
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I was at the Reading concert last night with my friend Ioanna (a BN fan who now thinks the band needs a new guitar player) and we thought we'd drop a few lines for your review pages.
I am not going to describe at full length the effort (and money) I had to invest in attending last night's BN show. Let's just say it involved quite a bit of commuting! For Ioanna as well, since she lives in London (and was kind enough to extend me her hospitality).
Anyway, the evening started with a support act we were not expecting. A good example of how a surprise is not always a pleasant thing! Not sure about their name, but then some things are better left unknown! Yet, despite their mediocre covers of indifferent folk songs, I must admit that their passion, good spirit and joy of performing in front of a new audience had us applauding them at the end of their 45 minutes stint.
BN took the stage at 8.50 and despite some initial sound problems it seemed that we were in for a good show! The band was in good form, Candice was great (she has really advanced as a performer over the last few years) and all in all it was an ok concert. Ritchie, however, was very low on the mix and seemed content to stay in the back while the (very good) keyboardist was sharing the limelight with Candice. The only moment of pure magic was during 'Diamonds and Rust', when the Baez' classic was given 'the Blackmore treatment'! All other songs were either cut short or done without the 'magic touch' of the Man in Black (for the first half of the concert I was sure it was a mix-up of the sound crew!) and sometimes even without his presence on stage (was there a free buffet/beer/cable TV backstage during World of Stone?). To top it all and make us feel like complete idiots for being there, the band left the stage after 75' minutes and never appeared for an encore in front of a rather warm and surely baffled audience (in case you thought the crowd was to blame) that waited and cheered in vain for about a
quarter of an hour! The venue staff, who were really great all night long, were equally mystified and in fact as we were making our way to the exit one of them
apologised for the band's behaviour!
Well, I've been a Blackmore fan long enough to be aware of his mood swings and to expect the occasional 'bad show'! However, even in his worst moments, Ritchie was never dull or boring. I never thought that I'd say that, but the only feeling that last night's Ritchie could induce was that of indifference! If he just left and was replaced by a cardboard dummy or Steve Morse (same musical genius, more easy-going as a character; compared to the dummy I mean) it would have made no difference to me! In fact the rest of the band, which was quite good by the way, could benefit from a change! That's what my friend Ioanna was telling me yesterday and I think I must agree with her. At least, without him nobody would expect magic moments in each and every song, and most of us would be happy with a 'quite good' or 'interesting' show.
Well, let's stop here! Thanks for listening to my chatter. I really hope the rest of the tour will be much better (but I highly doubt that). (Vassilis Argyris)
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In all the years that I've been a fan of The Man In Black, I've always said to myself "Expect the unexpected" especially when he plays live. And this was certainly true for this concert. The show started off with a new opening act called Gothien, who were from the Czech Republic and consisted of two guys and two
girls, namely Jan, Linda, Kamila and Martin. Their set was very lively, consisting of medieval dance music from
across Europe including Lithuania, Spain, France and England. On a couple of their songs, the lads, who played drum and lute swapped
instruments with one another, whilst the girls played shawms and sang. They went down very well with the crowd and actually did one extra number before leaving the stage. I noticed that during the interval quite a few of the audience returned to their seats with the Gothien CD.
After about half an hour, it was time for Blackmore's Night to perform, only seven members in the band this time with no violin player and a new bass player who strangely was not introduced to the audience. The set started with Past Time With Good Company which then flowed into Rainbow Blues. After these were performed Candice mentioned that this was the band's tenth anniversary and that they were going to perform songs from all the albums. She also quipped that they may perform songs from Ritchie's past in the B.C. era, Before Candice which made us all laugh. Play Minstrel Play was next, followed by Under A Violet Moon, by now the audience was warmed up and enjoying the concert and personally I thought there was a good vibe from both the band and the crowd.
Durch Den Wald Zum Bachhaus was then played which was followed by World Of Stone, I admit that this
isn't my favourite song on the Village Lanterne album but it was played very well live. Mond Tanz / Child In Time was next and they were joined on stage for part of the song by Gothien who left the stage by the time Ritchie did his solo which was, as always, excellent, Madeline and Nancy then came to the front of the stage to finish the song off in their own, almost operatic, style. Diamonds and Rust was started with a gentle but mesmerizing solo from Ritchie and then joined by Candice with some really heartfelt vocals.
Home Again was next, this one is always a crowd pleaser with Candice encouraging the front two rows of the audience to stand up and dance to the song and Bard David singing a fine rendition of the Drinking Song. A haunting version of I Still Remember was played next followed by Renaissance Faire, where more audience participation was encouraged and the band were once again joined on stage by Gothien after the song, I heard Ritchie remark that the support band's participation on that song
hadn't been rehearsed. Candice introduced The Clock Ticks On by saying that it was written by one of Ritchie's favourite composers at this point Ritchie interrupted her by saying " Yeah Sting" which got the biggest laugh of the night, again the song was played well with Ritchie starting it by playing the Hurdy Gurdy then switching to his guitar. The set then finished with the audience calling for more, clapping and cheering and some of the crowd to the right of me started to sing the riff to Black Night.
Sadly that was the end of the concert, no encore was played, the house lights went on and the Red Baron was played on the PA system but the audience were still clapping and cheering hoping that Ritchie and Candice would return. However a section of the crowd started booing, two guys who were sitting behind me said that they had travelled for two hours and paid, like we all did, over £20 only to have a show lasting about an hour. I replied that when it comes to Ritchie you have to expect the unexpected, to which the guys agreed.
I heard another man shout out an obscenity, with some justification I think, some of the crowd started to leave the venue and a couple of the security staff got up on stage to prevent anyone getting onto it.
My own feelings about the ending, I was only slightly shocked but not really surprised as Ritchie, I believe, has done this before. He has never before finished a show that I've attended as early as this, however I suppose that it was always in the back of my mind that it could happen and now it has. It also made me think whether anyone who attended the Rainbow concert at Wembley in 1980 was at this show, I wonder how they were feeling. It was such a shame as like I said before, I felt that there was a good vibe about the whole concert between both band and audience, the band themselves put on what I thought was a powerful performance and it makes me ask the questions was this a snap spur of the moment decision, or were there any problems backstage before the concert started.
Ritchie must have had his reasons to finish early, but whether we will find out
why, only time will tell.
(Mark Chesterman)
© Wymer UK. Not to be reproduced
without prior permission.
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