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Rating: Ritchie Blackmore is God.
This is the only conclusion one can reach after hearing him play live. Listening to Blackmore's Night CDs never really thrilled me much, and I went to Teatro Smeraldo out of pure faith: enduring two hours of boring Renaissance music in the hope of hearing something with a vague purple glow. Nothing could be further from what happened at Smeraldo: that old madman with the wig showed so much class, genius, and creativity that completely stunned everyone present. Damn, how he played! Hearing Ritchie live again (the last time was way back in 1993, in Forlì) was nothing short of exceptional, an absolute aesthetic experience. Years have passed, we've seen and heard all kinds of things, but no doubt about it, Ritchie remains number one. Period. With that piece of wood in his hands, he manages to communicate emotions I almost didn't know I had. I feel almost like a fool writing these banalities, but it is a fact. The concert was truly intense (I also have to reevaluate Candice Night, who, in the end, knows how to sing and doesn't look bad on stage), with Ritchie's acoustic guitars as the absolute stars of the stage. Needless to say, though, that when Ritchie picked up his Fender, the theater went wild. There's not much to do, even if his immense class was felt throughout the concert, when he made his Strat scream, I got goosebumps (and not just me, considering the delirious reaction of the audience in the hall). The only thing that pissed me off was knowing that in Dolo, two days before, Ritchie ended the concert with a purple medley, including "Sunshine Of Your Love" by Cream... damn, why do these things never happen when I'm there! Anyway, I enjoyed "16th Century Greensleeves" and "Self Portrait" (I never thought he would bring that one back... what a thrill!), both from the first massive masterpiece of Rainbow. I was a bit disappointed with Soldier of Fortune, but certainly not because of Ritchie: I feel sorry for his beautiful singer, but that song is tailored for Coverdale's voice, and hearing it sung by such a "different" voice can almost seem like a blasphemous act. In the end, though, thinking that Blackmore doesn't want to play electric anymore is a real tragedy, I can’t even imagine all that we've missed over these years. With the acoustic guitar in hand, he manages to amaze with incredible wonders (and you'd better believe it), but with that noisy Fender, it's a whole different music.
P.S. Interesting detail: our Man in Black even allowed himself to let out a fart during a moment of absolute silence, sparking laughter in the hall and among the rest of the band. But what can you do, we poor fools even enjoyed that: never heard such a musical fart in my life!
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