Per your comment, Ritchie Blackmore didn't and still doesn't use drugs. He enjoys fine alcohol occasionally, but was sober when he did this. The explosion blew a huge hole in the stage, and it was nationally televised live in the US but Ritchie gave the camera guy fair warning not to get between him and the crowd. Like someone else said below, don't piss off Ritchie Blackmore! 😅
On a side note. Blackmore's tone in his playing and the actual sound of that strat through the Marshalls it's just a fantastic sound! Which I ever could have such great sound on stage on my guitar :)
I was there as a 19 year old in 1974. It was crazy. It was in the middle of the “streaking craze”. The only difference was, was that those guys weren’t even running anymore , but were strolling.
There is a history to this. The band was supposed to go on stage to play at dusk.... But the organizer sent them on stage a good time before that. Blackmore was very angry about it. He also hated the camera to his left. It was too close to his person.
From Australia ,The great and legendary Mr. Ritchie Blackmore , Deep Purple big time legends here in OZ , Peace from down under , love your reactions , more DEEP PURPLE , try Child in time live BBC studios 1970 you won't be disappointed , it's a great video
I really enjoyed watching this and I've never seen him do that before. He just threw away alot of money by doing that so good thing the guitars and stage equipment were cheaper in 1974 than what they are now.
Purple were asked to go on earlier than planned. Ritchie wasnt happy (wanted it to be dark) and the rest is history... I have often wondered - what happened to the guitar chucked into the crowd...
He was fully expressing his music as a product (or expression of) violence. People (boys) spend their adolescence worshipping genres labelled with all variety of badass words and never give a moments thought to the real world violence embodied in them.
