Blackmore’s Night – Paris Moon

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impulse buy

SPV
Produced by Max Robertson

Former Deep Purple and Rainbow guitar legend Ritchie Blackmore’s reinvention with his renaissance folk band Blackmore’s Night has long been a bone of contention with hard rock fans the World over, often pinning blame on his wife Candice Night for taking their hero away from rock music

There perhaps former fans of Ritchie’s will therefore be equally irritated to learn that, judging by the neon board outside the theatre in Paris where this DVD was filmed, Night now gets equal billing with Ritchie, the board reading “Blackmore’s Night: Ritchie Blackmore and Candice Night”. And I don’t think anyone could deny that Night clearly loves the attention. Frequent furtive looks directly at the camera while singing at this show are perhaps a little too pop-star-like and her insipid gushing over the closing credits will infuriate her naysayers.

This DVD/CD set itself should please fans of Ritchie’s new musical path. The DVD contains a presumably complete 19-track concert in wonderful colour and clarity, and the CD contains nine selections from the show (actually ten as Past Times With Good Company and Rainbow Blues have been joined into one track) plus two studio tracks (why include previously available material here?)

The audience at the show are your usual Blackmore’s Night crowd (an equal three-way split between loons in medieval dress, forlorn rock fans in Deep Purple t-shirts, and folk dressed like they’re going to the opera) and while they were very appreciative of the show, especially as it was the first time the band had ever played in Paris, the biggest cheers were reserved for when Ritchie broke out his trademark white Stratocaster, which emerges on Ariel, Loreley and St. Theresa.

Set-wise most of the key tracks from their ten-year career are here, but the new tracks from Village Lanterne and Ghost of A Rose really don’t have the same life as ones like Play Minstrel Play, Under A Violet Moon and Minstrel Hall from the first two albums. The crowd vocalising the main riff to Purple’s classic Smoke On The Water as an encore cheer is priceless and Ritchie no doubt gets that less-than-subtle message from audiences everywhere he plays.

There’s not much faulting this DVD. The concert is long and well shot with excellent sound, and it’s good to see the occasional mistake hasn’t been edited out, giving it the raw performance quality this kind of stripped music needs. The bonus features aren’t up to much, but they’re largely unimportant; the concert is the thing anyone buying this will be parting with their money for. I would say the CD could have been longer as there was no need to include already available studio tracks instead of more songs from the concert. In fact, it wouldn’t have hurt to include the entire concert on a double CD, which would have made this the complete 10th anniversary package.

I doubt many fans will complain though. The crowd in Paris certainly didn’t.

“ wonderful colour and clarity ”

Tracklist: Introduction / Past Times With Good Company / Rainbow Blues / Play Minstrel Play / World of Stone / Under A Violent Moon / Soldier of Fortune / Bachaus / Diamonds & Rust / Minstrel Hall / Home Again / Streets of London / Renaissance Faire / Keyboard solo / Ariel / Loreley / The Clock Ticks On / Fires At Midnight / St. Theresa / The Village Lanterne
Bonus Features: Documentary / Photo Gallery
Bonus CD: Past Times With Good Company/Rainbow Blues / Play Minstrel Play / World of Stone / Under A Violet Moon / Minstrel Hall / Home Again / Ariel / The Clock Ticks On / Fires At Midnight / The Village Lanterne (Studio Version) / All Because of You (Radio Edit)

Photo(s): Michael Keel | www.keelphoto.com

Written by Andy Lye
More: Live DVDs, Non-metal, Blackmore's Night