{"id":595768,"date":"2026-08-17T06:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T06:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/595768\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T06:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T06:56:15","slug":"i-was-there-to-heal-any-wounds-ritchie-blackmore-reflects-on-emotional-onstage-reunion-with-deep-purple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/595768\/","title":{"rendered":"“I was there to heal any wounds.” Ritchie Blackmore reflects on “emotional” onstage reunion with Deep Purple"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ritchie Blackmore<\/a> says his recent onstage reunion with Deep Purple<\/a> after three decades of estrangement was a chance to heal old wounds.<\/p>\n

The 81-year old co-founder of the band joined them onstage to perform set closer Smoke On The Water<\/a> in Wantagh, New York earlier this week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He hadn’t played with Deep Purple since leaving under a cloud after a show in Helsinki, Finland, in November 1993.<\/p>\n

But after 33 years he finally made peace with singer Ian Gillan <\/a>with whom he has had a frosty relationship since that split in the 90s.<\/p>\n

After the performance in New York, Blackmore tells Guitar Player<\/a>: “It was very moving because I went on very quickly and had to play immediately.<\/p>\n

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“I couldn\u2019t warm up, but I wasn\u2019t there to be playing correct notes. I was there to see old friends I hadn\u2019t seen in 40 years and we’re all getting older. I think we realised it could be the last time we see each other, maybe.”<\/p>\n

The guitar icon admits his performance wasn’t perfect, but adds that wasn’t really the point.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was tricky.” he adds. “I didn\u2019t play anything too technical, as I felt I should stick to the rudiments of being simple.<\/p>\n

“I still lost my place at one point, but it\u2019s not why I was there. I was there to heal any wounds \u2013 but there weren\u2019t any wounds.<\/p>\n

“Everyone was like, we were in the army, all along the Western front and we were all getting together again. Very emotional moment.”<\/p>\n

There’s no indication whether Blackmore may perform with the band again, but he insists any tension with Gillan is in the past.<\/p>\n

He says: \u201cWe\u2019re two alpha guys. I\u2019m used to running a band, and I think he\u2019s used to running a band. So we clashed in the old days. But all that changed.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ritchie Blackmore says his recent onstage reunion with Deep Purple after three decades of estrangement was a chance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-595768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}