Saw them live in Ridgefield Friday (same place I saw The Winery Dogs a couple months ago). For TWD, I was front row, but obstructed view, but once the show started, I stood in front of Billy and it was awesome. For BN, I got second row, right side, obstructed view, but I figured I would stand in front of Ritchie... no such luck. But still, I was 15 feet from my musical idol and favorite musician of all time (Ritchie, not Candice). Yeah, you have to get past the "Renaissance", but having said that, it's extremely well-played. When Ritchie and Candice did their duet on "Soldier of Fortune" and "Moonlight Shadow" it was amazing. Her voice and his playing just seem to go together, and as much as I admired Blackmore, I was blown away by how good he really is.
He's still mercurial; he was having problems with the sound early (some jackass yelled "Ritchie, turn up your guitar!" in the middle of a solo spot) and he was playing loose with the set. At one point Candice was looking at him for a cue, and he was sort of in thought, and someone yelled "Ritchie, where's the STRAT!" and he yelled back in a very sarcastic voice, "Ritchie, where's the Strat!", and proceeded to wave the rest of the band off the stage to do the aforementioned Moonlight Shadow just as a duet. Later, Candice introduced "Fires at Midnight", and Ritchie started playing "Diamonds and Rust" and simply said "I changed my mind", but the rest of the band had to adjust their instrumentation (the bass player played about four different instruments). I saw the setlist before the show; it's not as if they were playing songs that weren't in the mix (I got the impression there were about 30 songs that were "in play" and they played about 20, 25 in the two and a half hour set), but the fluidity of it made it fun.
Highlight, for me, at the end, I got to shake Ritchie's hand from the stage, and it made my day.
I get that the Renaissance thing isn't for everyone, but if you want to watch a guy play the absolute CRAP out of a guitar, you need to see this before he calls it a day. And it is crass, but it has to be said, Candice is gorgeous (even at 45; she looks easily 10 or 15 years younger) and really is comfortable on stage. She has this way of swirling her dress as she dances that's just... She also sang the hell out of Soldier...; some of her parts were doubled by a backup singer, but she held her own.
EDIT: I changed "Candace" to "Candice" (I know a "Candace", so that's my fault) and added the sentence about her swirling dress.
Topic: Blackmore's Night (Read 1044 times)
