Deep Purple - The Infamous Ritchie Blackmore Incident At The 1974 California Jam in 60FPS

In 1974, Deep Purple played one of the craziest American rock ‘n’ roll festivals, the Californian Jam, in a set which ended with Ritchie Blackmore attacking a cameraman. Their sensational performance – fueled by backstage aggro – climaxed in an orgy of destruction by Blackmore. At the end of Space Truckin’ he smashed his Stratocaster repeatedly into a camera operator’s lens. He went on to destroy several more guitars before a madder-than-expected explosion in his Marshall stacks set his hair on fire. And Ian Paice’s. And most of the road crew’s. David Coverdale: “We were supposed to go on stage at sunset. That was actually written into our contract. But the California Jam was running ahead of schedule. We’d just flown in by helicopter and I remember being in my backstage caravan, pouring myself a scotch and Coke, when somebody came in and said: “It’s time for you to get out on stage.” “Ritchie wanted Purple to be the first band to use lights on stage. He refused to go on stage until the contracted time, and he was absolutely correct. I remember someone saying: “Do you know who you’re dealing with there?” There was inference the Mafia was involved.“ Glenn Hughes: “There was lots of screaming and yelling. Ritchie locked the door to his trailer. They had to break in to get him out of there. Was there a chance Purple’s show might not have gone ahead?“ David Coverdale: “Yes. The festival organizer told us: “Right, that’s it, we’re pulling the plug. You’re all going to fucking hell.” And he stormed off to announce that we wouldn’t be appearing. Luckily our tour manager, Ossie Hoppe, beat him in a race to the stage. Ossie grabbed the mic and shouted to the crowd: “Do you wanna see Deep Purple?!” And a quarter of a million people went: “Yeah!” Glenn Hughes: “We managed to delay by about 20 minutes but the sun only went down about halfway through our set. But it fired us up; it gave a bit of an edge to our performance. Ritchie had a bit of a moan – he hadn’t had time to change into his stage clothes. Then Blackmore attacked a cameraman.“ David Coverdale: “That was never supposed to be part of the show, to smack the cameraman. But he was on Ritchie’s arse from the word go. Ritchie would do his thoughtful, melodic little pieces and there’d be this abrasive voice going: “Hey, step back so I can get a decent shot of you.” What about the explosive climax? David Coverdale: “It went a bit too far. There was too much explosive. It looks great, I agree, but Ritchie got burned, Paicey got burned, and some of the crew got burned. Thankfully it was nothing too serious.“ Glenn Hughes: “We sold a lot of records and concert tickets in America after that. It was a big, bold statement and it deserves its place in rock’s history books.“ 🤘 #DeepPurple #RitchieBlackmore #CaliforniaJam1974