Guitar legend Ritchie Blackmore explains why he's bringing 'The Quietest Band In The World', Blackmore's Night, to Newcastle Opera House - and you can all join in!

Ritchie Blackmore was the mercurial guitar master synonymous with rock's most powerful cohorts Deep Purple and Rainbow. Any of us who seized a tennis racket or an invisible axe owe this Man in Black 'Smoke on the Water' for giving us the ultimate riff. When his band 'Blackmore's Night' plays The Newcastle Opera House on May 22nd we won't be over the Rainbow but 'Under A Violet Moon' - the current album title for his headlong foray into the Renaissance world of music. No ear defenders here - perhaps doublet and hose. No fists punching the air - perhaps raised only in a courtly pavanne. Very Richie Blackmore - unpredictable and entertaining.

The Haunting
Ritchie Blackmore and vocalist Candice Night, partners in life and music (Blackmore's Night - geddit?), are excited about playing Newcastle - in Candice's case, visiting Northern England for the first time. For Blackmore it's a fond return and a hope that Newcastle Opera House is a worthy successor to the City Hall. "I first played The City Hall in 1962 and then about 25 times after that - it's small and the acoustics are perfect. I love the North East, from York upwards - there's none of the pressure and nonchalance that you get in London. I love the History up there - I've got memories of Lumley Castle which I sensed was really haunted. I used to tell the raod crew this - they always drank twice as much as a result, when they arrived!"

Violet Moon Rising
Renaissance Music might suggest the twee and limp wristed - but Blackmore's Night's second outing 'Under A Violet Moon' is anything but. Titles like 'Spanish Nights', 'March The Heroes Home', 'Gone With The Wind', 'Catherine Howard's Fate' range from the poignant to the stirring and the epic - but never the bombastic. Musical influences from Spain, Turkey, Morocco swirl in and out. Explains Blackmore: "I was turned onto this music by David Munroe's score 'Pleasures Of The Court' and started to research Renaissance music. Much of it is dour but a lot is exciting. I fiddled around with it for 12 or 15 years and there are glimpses in Rainbow's music. (A Rainbow track 'Self-Portrait' gets the Blackmore's Night treatment on this album). Then I decided to open the door fully and show how exciting this music can be. I'm saying this is Blackmore's Night - give it a listen."
Candice explained further: "The Band evolved from my situation at home - a castle by water. For six years Ritchie brought me into music, encouraging me to sing and write lyrics around this special house. It was a natural evolution between the two of us - and recording or touring were originally never envisaged. In Blackmore's Night Ritchie is the master of ceremonies in terms of arranging, writing, producing and playing and I get free rein with lyrics and vocals. There's only one ego at work here - ours together as a team. Sometimes there are pressures but we row for fifteen minutes per tour if that."
What about the singing of such structured music?
"It's not difficult to express emotion," says Candice, "Each Song has a strong identity telling me how to put the emotion across. Many of the lyrics are about lost wonderment and a lack of innocence - Castles and Dreams fading in the morning sun - we need to escape sometimes from modern technology and regain a spiritual sense. There's escape, however brief, in the songs and the concerts."

Quietest Band In The World
Complacency is definitely not Blackmore's middle name and never has been. 'Past Times And Good Company' credited on the album to King Henry the Eighth has an ironic title to it considering his previous love/hate relationship with bands - particularly Deep Purple.
"I've been labelled moody because as a performer I am not smug and when you're just plain dissatisfied with areas of your music or playing, you show it. Your music and quest for perfection is a struggle. With the Renaissance sound of Blackmore's Night there are definite structures and a discipline I have to work around - there is no easy way out.

In comparison with previous bands this is fifty percent acoustic and the volume has to be held down - in fact I've graduated from the World's Loudest to the World's quietest Band!"

Come Join The Throng
'Blackmore's Night' concerts are not an 'us and them' rock affair. Candice told me: "With Ritchie's previous bands audiences were male-dominated - wives and girlfriends were often dragged along. With this band there's a bigger female percentage in attendance. We're throwing the concerts open for the audience to join us in our Renaissance fair. Mediaeval attire is optional and if you want to pavane and carouse with us - feel free. It's too much of a serious world."

It will be interesting to see exactly how serious the North East audience will take Blackmore's Night at The Newcastle Opera House. The programme warns: 'This is not a Deep Purple or Rainbow evening' - and it certainly is not. It is sixteenth century with a bullet. Blackmore's Night is a thrilling new era for a man notorious for his reclusiveness from interviews. His excitement at experimenting and offering a new genre to audiences, and not having to hammer out the same old riffs, is obvious.
"I always declined interviews with previous bands because I was too tired after recording and touring. I'm not the best at P.R. and I couldn't endorse music when it was substandard. This band is a great challenge. I'm opening a new door and I may fall flat on my face. When I walk out onto The Opera House stage it will be nerve-wracking, because I'm taking a chance. We woudn't do it any other way."

Now, where's my jester's hat?

[ Chris Phipps, One Stop Pop
http://www.onestoppop.com ]