Rica Hell Hotel / Trondheim

Report by Staffan Eriksson
Publishing with kindly permission by Paul Deblond.
Original on www.blackmoresnight.nu

Hell ain't a bad place to be

Blackmore's Night played in Hell in Norway on the 7th of June. It is in Hell the annual Hell Blues Festival is held in September, often being visited by members of the Deep Purple-family. Last year HTP played there and this autumn Jon Lord will be there. Roger Glover, Ian Paice, Bernie Marsden, Mickey Moody, Neil Murray och Deep Purple have been there too, so it is a real Purple place!

Ritchie Blackmore of 2003 shows that he really is one of the best guitarists in the world! The uninspired playing from the 80's is gone and he plays with great precision and puts a lot of soul and heart into the music. He often switches between his different string instruments, which shows his ability to improvise, every show is unique and a Blackmore in good shape is always best "live". His band also consists of skilful musicians who play several instruments which makes the sound and the music go beyond any limit. Candice is great as a front person and she is nice to look at and wonderful to listen to.

The gig in Hell consisted mostly of older Blackmore's Night-songs with "Soldier Of Fortune" and "Sixteenth Century Greensleeves". But a lot of new material from the new album "Ghost Of A Rose" was presented as well. I think those new song were really exciting; very well played on guitar by Ritchie, dramatically and beautiful melodies and I felt that Blackmore's Night have taken a step forward with this new material. An instrumental I liked a lot; "Mr Peagram's Morris And Sword" will "be stuck" in the live set for a long time for sure. "Play Minstrel Play" was another highlight and this time the flute solo wasn't played on keyboards, it was played on a real flute, which made it sound much better than the previous versions. Other highlights in a very strong concert were a really great version of "Village On The Sand" and a very brutal version of "The Storm" played on Stratocaster. The later one in the same spirit as "Highway Star" and "Kill The King" and according to Candice the song is very seldom played live because it is so hard to get it right. This time though, it went down very well.

It was a GREAT concert but we only got one encore, "Writing On The Wall" which included the riff from "Burn", which was a pity. It was a great and tight version though, with very good guitar playing from Ritchie. It's a pity that we weren't allowed to take photos though the websites said the opposite. I can understand why flash is annoying but I don't understand why we can't take photos without that. The quality of photos taken without flash is poor and, as we only want them as a souvenir it should be OK.

If you have the opportunity, buy a ticket for a Blackmore's Night show! It doesn't matter if you're a metal fan and don't like this kind of music (which I love), you forget it when you hear Ritchie, Candice and their band play.
 

Showtime: approximately 2 hours

Setlist:

Cartouche
Play Minstrel Play
Under A Violet Moon
Minstrel Hall
Past Times With Good Company
Soldier Of Fortune
16th Century Greensleeves
The Storm
Diamonds And Rust
Mr. Peagram's Morris And Sword
Village On The Sand
Durch Den Wald Zum Bachhaus
Queen For A Day
Ghost Of A Rose
Fires At Midnight
Renaissance Faire
I Still Remember


Encore:

Writing On The Wall (incl Burn)