Impressed by a legendarny guitar player… If only he played during Suwałki Blues Festival…

It would be so nice to welcome Ritchy Blackmore at SBF. For now, a special deputy, who was amazed by Blackmore’s Night performance, had a chance to listen to a former Deep Purple member.

Zitadelle Petersberg was raised over the ruins of old XII century Benedictine monastery in Erfurt, Germany. It is the place of next Blackmore’s Night castle concert. This band of bards and minstrels  atcs under the dark forces of leadership of Ritche Blackmore, ex- Deep Purple and Rainbow founding guitarist and his blond fairy of light Candice Night.

A road made of stones leads to the courtyard of the Zitadelle where the large crowd of medieval garb dressed audience is slowly gathering.  It looks like the ancient happening from closer undefined old centuries with the diffrence to modern PA and electronic equipment gathered on the medieval decorated stage.

There is an old apple tree appeared near this road with green magical fruits on it. I picked up a few and gave one to Sir Earl Gray Of Chimay – the Blackmore’s Night bassplayer who was running in and out of stage trying to find his inspiration….I was hoping( because of these apples) he will fall down asleep like he stands but well it never happened. Insted of this he and his musical, medieval wife Scarlett Fiddler – Miss Violin and their naughty son Security Guy have joined the picture especially for the Suwalki Blues Festival chronicle.

Just before the show the gleaming flies, in the size shown in the picture, were being chased throughout the damp and evil Zitadelle’s ghost air but with no success they all escaped backstage and landed under the hat of the tour manager and there was no chance for free gleam to light the universe…

Master Blackmore kicked off the concert with the medieval, magical and mystical sound of Hurdy Gurdy playing an intro to the ‘Dancer And The Moon’ number. And the rain fell down…and it was a bit cold so the band played an up tempo ‘Under The Violet Moon’ to let the audience to dance and jump around the stage to avoid cold and fear of the dark. Because of that bloody cold Ritchie shown his interest in Russian vodka conversation and was gladly ready to get a bottle from a SBF messenger who appeared just infront the stage like a socerere from the darkness. It is a good thing the SBF running on summer schedule so no cold be allowed near Mr. Blackmore any more if he appears to play for us – for people of near Russian border Suwalki land.

The whole performance was cool and to the point. Strong, monumental and sliding solos during  Blackmore’s ‘Difficult To Cure'( a version of Beethoven 9th) and ‘The Moon I Shining’ made the whole crowd felt themselves just higher and higher…Even if he didn’t play an elegy tune called ‘Carry On Jon’ saying ‘it was just not an apriopriate time’, we could be satysfied of the improvisation of ‘Soldier Of Fortune’ and very soul searching singing from Candice Night. Massive, tremendous and astronomic sound of  riffs of ‘Smoke On the Water ‘ and ‘Black Night’ showed once more who is the master of the ceremony who rocked up the medieval Petersberg’s fortress. And the Procol Harrum’s song ‘Whiter Shade Of Pale’ has ended gently the show of bards, elves, minstrels and fairies. The crowd slowly gone away and you can see dark shiluettes moving down cross the Erfurt’s old streets but most of them suddenly disappeared in the pubs and tavernes which were living their usual nighty life.

Sir Chimay and Lady Violin could be seen somewhere near stone bridge but they didn’t find the way to the club where we all sat down to browse Zitadelle’s concert pictures and where warming up and  dreaming about Blackmore’s Night miracle, possible appearance on our next year’s edition Suwalki Blues Festival.

Author: The Willow