Cheap Purple? Or Can You Sorta' Catch The Rainbow?

Today's post is from our friend HIM.

 

Let’s get it out of the way: Blackmore wears a wig. Has since the early days (well, at some point extensions become a thing unto themselves!). To his mind, not having hair is unbecoming of a rock god. This isn’t something like his former (and nagging) singer, Joe Lynn Turner, who has had alopecia since he was a wee one and had no hair since then as a result.

 

Why care about hair? I don’t really, given that I have less and less. But it speaks to the calculated brilliance that was (or is) Blackmore. The man reeks of condescension. He mocks his former band. He dismisses his former band members. He has launched numerous acts merely by being the act from which they departed. He is exacting. Meticulous. He is also a magician. He gets a pass for passing off a Brazilian toss-off song as the biggest riff in rock (Astrud Gilberto, we hardly knew ye’ . . . well, we did as you popularized “The Girl From Ipanema” and didn’t play the guitar on that song), while Page is stuck explaining all those youngins’ who followed him from hotel to hotel, a Blues songbook tucked precariously in his arse pocket. Biggest sign he is a rock god. He gave rock up to chase his wife and a lute around while dressed like Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride.

 

So the fact that he was ‘getting a band back together (again)’ rightfully raised more noise than the latest Dokken reunion. Would he bring it? Who would he bring it with if he could? Turner? Nope. Bonnet? Wrong again. Doogie, not Howser? Not even close. And Gillan was about as likely as Dio, and the latter would likely not have answered the call if he could have done so.

 

So we got Blackmore’s Night-ish Purple Rainbow Traveling Show. A few of his now usual minstrels. And a new young buck by the name of Arnel Pineda. I kid, his name is Ronnie Romero, of the Spanish metal band Lords of the Black. Never heard of him/them? Yeah, me too. But he has got some pipes. And he did spend time singing Dio songs while doing them accented-justice. So what came of this mere handful of shows?  Well, this did:

 

 

It made me miss Lord. It might have made Blackmore miss Paice. It certainly isn’t Gillan. Then again, Gillan isn’t Gillan anymore.  But was it Blackmore? It was certainly more Blackmore. And, at 71, who’s to throw stones at a man who has spent his recent years in quiet repose while gently noodling alongside his buxom lass? Not me.

 

Thing is, this song has a special place in my heart. It was the improbable return of a band, not a guitarist. And though you get a whiff of that man at around the 4:15 mark, you don’t really get a sense of the guitar god who was lucky enough to find himself in the company of people who weren’t, but eventually became, Perfect Strangers.  It is as if Blackmore is hesitating at the Gates of Babylon, unsure of his reasons for being there. I am mixing metaphors and singers, but you get my point. And here is a counter-point . . . in all of its brief, glorious, originality:

 

 

Bottom-line: what do you think? Was the wait worth it? Is the payoff satisfying? Can you go back, not again, but close enough? For, rest assured, at some point, we aren’t even going to be able to get close enough to those bands who once inspired us. So claim your positions and mark my words: we are lucky to quibble about this topic right now.