{"id":906026,"date":"2026-09-26T09:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T09:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/906026\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T09:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T09:10:11","slug":"ritchie-blackmore-addresses-the-reaction-to-his-deep-purple-reunion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/906026\/","title":{"rendered":"Ritchie Blackmore addresses the reaction to his Deep Purple reunion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ritchie Blackmore<\/a> has opened up about his recent surprise reunion with Deep Purple<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 81-year-old guitarist joined his former bandmates onstage at the Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh, New York on August 12, where he played Purple classic Smoke On The Water<\/a>. It was his first appearance with the band since 1993, and followed decades of often bitter estrangement.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Now the guitarist has addressed the reaction to his appearance, which was teased by his wife Candice Night the day before the show. Speaking in the first instalment of a new 13-part interview series with Phil Aston of Now Spinning<\/a> magazine, Blackmore reveals when he decided to play \u2013 and his thoughts on the reaction to his appearance.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

\u201cI sat up in bed and thought, \u2018What about if I got up on stage, as they’re in the area?\u2019\u201d Blackmore says. \u201cThey’re playing a great place called the Jones Beach Theater. And it’s outside, and the view is over the water. Magnificent place. And I’ve always wanted to play there. But I sat up in bed and I thought, \u2018I wonder if…\u2019<\/p>\n

Blackmore adds that he asked Candice: \u201cHow do you feel about me just asking [Purple singer] Ian Gillan if it’s all right to play in Smoke On The Water, then just disappearing?’ And then she thought it was a good idea, so we sent him an e-mail via Candice.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so we sallied forth and infiltrated. Now Candice sent the e-mail and Ian said, \u2018Yes, of course. Welcome aboard. All the band is up for it. Come on stage for Smoke.’ I just wanted to do one song, and I thought that would be the song. It\u2019s big over here [in the US] \u2013 bigger here than it was in Europe. And so we kind of advertised it in a little way. Not much, just enough. And funnily enough, the ticket sales went up, which was nice. Anyway, they thought it was a good idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blackmore added that \u201ceverybody was so helpful\u2026 incredibly nice\u201d when he arrived at the show. \u201cAnd I played my three or four minutes of Smoke On The Water, which seemed to go down like I just invented the cure for cancer.<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cAnd I felt very good about it because it was like playing with old friends\u2026 It’d been, like, 35 years since I’d actually played with the band, and nobody had changed. Everybody was great. And thank goodness it went off without a hitch, but it could have quite easily have fallen apart, and that would’ve been embarrassing.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it was well worth doing,\u201d he concluded. \u201cIt was a good idea that I had, and it came to me very early one morning when I was in bed. I just thought, \u2018Why not?\u2019 Cos we never know when we\u2019re going to meet again, which is like a sad note in a way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking in the brand new issue of Classic Rock<\/a>, Ian Gillan suggested the appearance had effectively been in the cards for some time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t really surprised it happened,\u201d the singer says. \u201cI\u2019ve been in touch with Ritchie for quite a long time now, and we\u2019re on very good terms. All the nonsense from the past is now water under the bridge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ritchie Blackmore plays \u201cSmoke on the Water\u201d with Deep Purple 8\/12\/2026 Jones Beach Theater – YouTube
\n\"Ritchie<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ritchie Blackmore has opened up about his recent surprise reunion with Deep Purple. The 81-year-old guitarist joined his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":906027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-906026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=906026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/906027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}