“There were blue lights flashing”: When Yes caused Ritchie Blackmore to set his own show on fire
Rock and roll has never been short on a few musical divas coming and going throughout history. While it’s nice to know that some artists can still be genuine people like Bruce Springsteen, there’s always someone like Axl Rose who tries to crown themselves as king of the world from the minute they get onstage and treat everyone as their subjects. Even though Ritchie Blackmore didn’t have to worry about too much except for tearing up his guitar solos, he wasn’t afraid to take matters into his own hands when things didn’t go his way.
Granted, Blackmore was never the typical rock guitar player from the minute Deep Purple started. There were moments where he would play a lick that seemed ripped out of Led Zeppelin now and again, but seeing him perform his greatest solos was like watching a rabid dog be let loose for a few hours, including moments where he seemed to be playing the guitar with his ass.
While The Who were still known as one of the most chaotic bands in the world when Purple was climbing the charts, no one smashed a guitar quite like Blackmore. Whereas Pete Townshend could look like he was destroying his instrument out of frustration, there was some genuine rage behind Blackmore’s eyes whenever he heaved his guitar into an amplifier or threw it onto the stage floor.
But that was part of the beauty of seeing Deep Purple in concert. As Made in Japan demonstrates, no one quite knew what they were going to get next during those jams, and even though Ian Gillan could match Blackmore’s string bends note-for-note when he sang high, Blackmore made sure to leave every one of his bandmates in the dust once any of their jams started.
A lot can change after touring for a while, and Purple managed to get demoted once bands like Yes began gaining traction. Chris Squire and Steve Howe could certainly give them a run for their money in the virtuoso department, but Blackmore was never going to roll over when he learned that he was going to need to go on earlier to accommodate their gigs with the prog-rock giants.
According to Gillan, Blackmore figured the only way to compensate for going on earlier was to go out in style, saying, “He ordered some gasoline to be brought in. He threw it all over the equipment and then had the roadie light a broom, which had a petrol-soaked rag on the end of it to ignite the lot. Of course, it did ignite – because the fumes just exploded. Within a half-hour, there were blue lights flashing.”
That wouldn’t be the last time Blackmore had a run-in with concert promoters who wanted him to go on earlier. When the Mk. III lineup played at California Jam, he figured the best way to avoid getting arrested for disrupting the show would be for him to blow up his amplifier, which turned the entire stage into a huge puff of smoke midway through their setlist.
While it’s unclear whether Yes was playing over or the promoters needed to accommodate the audience, they all learned one important lesson that night. Blackmore was not to be trifled with, and whereas most artists would simply refuse to go on early, the guitarist wasn’t above leaving absolute carnage in his wake.
