Youth Palace / Moskau

Report by Vasili Ivanchenko.
Publishing with kindly permission by Paul Deblond.
Original on www.blackmoresnight.nu
Photos © Dmitry Zykov www.deep-purple.ru

We all were awaiting those concerts with lots of emotions. Mainly because of the shows in Moscow in April 2002 – the venue was a large Sports Hall with capacity of approx. 10 thousand of people. It was a strange show: Ritchie had his birthday, but his mood wasn’t pretty good and lots of Blackmore’s Night’s fans were rather disappointed. Our anxiety grew stronger when the first show on 10th October was delayed: the show time was 20 p.m., but after 21 p.m. the show still hadn’t had started. Suddenly someone from the BN staff took microphone and reported that Candice felt ill at that moment. Everyone was afraid of canceling the show, but nearly at 21.40 the musicians finally entered the stage and the concert began.
Everything seemed OK with Candice, but I noticed that Ritchie asked her about her health from time to time. But the main thing was that Ritchie had a really great mood! Sometimes he even joked: for example, he pointed at the first rows and asked: “Why had they come here in those silly clothes?”. The set list was nearly usual, but once Ritchie asked the people what did they want to hear – and someone cried “Wish You Were Here!” In a few moments the song started! Ritchie played more instrumental tracks than he usually did. I think that was because of Candice and her problems with health. For instance, what an excitement we all had when during the show Ritchie took some glasses with beer from the backstage and presented them to some of BN fans!

“Ghost Of The Rose” was really fantastic, and from oldies Ritchie played “Soldier Of Fortune” and “16th Century Greensleeves”. Lord Marnen (violin) had his birthday that day, so when the band left him alone on stage for solo, he played nearly fantastic, even hadn’t forget about traditional Russian song “Podmoskovnye Vechera”. The show went to an end and the band played “Writing On The Wall”. During the fantastic solo Ritchie played the legendary riff from “Burn”. The show ended with wonderful “Beyond The Sunset” and “Now And Then”. Really magnificent and lyrical ending.

Showtime: 1 hour and 50 minutes

Setlist:

Cartouche
Play Minstrel Play
Minstrel Hall
Under A Violet Moon
Past Time With Good Company
Soldier Of Fortune
Durch Den Wald Zum Bach Haus
Sixteenth Century Greensleeves
Wish You Were Here
Diamonds And Rust
Home Again
I Still Remember
Mr Peagram's Morris And Sword
Ghost Of A Rose
Renaissance Faire
Lord Marnen's Violin solo
Rainbow Blues
Bard David's keyboard solo
Writing On The Wall (incl. Burn riff)

Encore:

Beyond the sunset
Now And Then