Any Deep Purple or Rainbow fans here? Remember Ritchie Blackmore? Guitar extraordinaire? Reason that Deep Purple & Rainbow were hugely successful?
Well since 1997 he and his wife Candice Night have been selling out tours and selling millions of albums all throughout Europe, .longer that Blackmore's tenures in Deep Purple & Rainbow and he is loving every minute of it. Anyone into renaissance? Ya know, medieval times, dressing up in costumes, going to fairs like King Richards just over the Sagamore Bridge in Massachusetts, every late fall. Well, Blackmore's Night is one band not to be taken lightly regarding success for each new release they get more and more popular in Europe and the USA.
Their live shows are complete transformations of stage and dress too. Once in the auditorium or amphitheater, a concert goer is transported into medieval times and entertained for over 2 and 1/2 hours per show with originals and occasional cover songs. Typically, the band will cover "Soldier Of Fortune" a mainstay since the beginning of Blackmore's Night. More recently as of 4 years ago or so, "Diamonds And Rust" has been a concert favorite. Deep Purple fans were treated to a folkish - rocking rendition of "Child In Time" and the band would close the evening with "Black Night" all with Candice Night doing complete justice to David Coverdale and Ian Gillanr ;ead singers of Rainbow & Deep Purple.
I've got all their releases including their most recent "Dancer And The Moon" of which the title track is easily one of those songs that any female dancer could get into I suppose. There are many standout tracks from "Dancer And The Moon" it's really hard to pick just one. Other songs from previous releases such as the haunting "I Still Remember" & the equally haunting and beautiful "Ghost Of A Rose" never cease to capture my attention with repeated listens. A concert favorite that is equally great from the studio is the sing - a - long "Home Again". "Village In The Sand", "Under A Violet Moon", "Morning Star", "Way To Mandalay", "25 Years", "I Think It's Going To Rain Today", "The Clock Ticks On", 'Spanish Nights", 'Written In The Stars", "Fires At Midnight", "Shadow Of The Moon", "Rainbow Blues" & "Writing On The Wall, up-tempo rockers from the band all could compete with any other folk rock and roll band around yesterday and today world wide.
My brother Troy Mahler (RIP) his favorite was "Ocean Gypsy" a ballad for he was a deep sea fisherman and "Ocean Gypsy" is currently being played via WinAMP.
On a side note, anyone know the current status of the WinAMP project? Over a month ago, the status was that it was in hiatus, no new updates and the only way to get the multi-media player was from places such as FileForum, Download, TuCows, CNet & ZDNet. link is the official site and any news would be greatly appreciated.
Blackmore's Night managed to capture their live shows without any loss of intimacy between the band and audience and have released several full length concert DVD's.
If you would like to hear the band live, to understand if they can match their studio excellence, I suggest "Past Times With Good Company" a two disc set that captures songs from all their releases up to 2003.
As a singer songwriter and non lethal weapons advocate, I had the distinct pleasure of introducing the owners of M2 Technologies Inc, Janet & Chris Morris, non lethal advocates and federal government private contractors to the band via their YahooGroups email list prior to the band finishing 2003's "Ghost Of A Rose" album. When I should've been writing about me and how their music is an influence, the moderators graciously allowed me to write about the Morris's and it became a topic for Blackmore's Night" for "Mr. Peagram's Morris & Sword" an instrumental track became reality and was included on "Ghost Of A Rose' and was performed live many times during the following castle tour across Europe.
"Diamonds And Rust' is now my current selection and in my humble opinion, it's better than the original. link is the official website and the band can be found in Facebook as well.
Go get some Blackmore's Night, you won't be disappointed.
WK
Seriously Bill, do you think it's normal to start with one topic, then go through 15 other topics (usually about you or your family) and then go the original topic? Which kind of responses do you expect after you literally throw at us a huge amount of what seems like random words? Sometimes I think if you're a real person and not a robot generating text