Ritchie Blackmore stepped back onstage with Deep Purple near the end of the band’s show Wednesday night at Jones Beach in New York and joined them for a rendition of “Smoke on the Water.” For a guitarist who left the group for the second and last time in 1993, it was the first time in many years that he had played with the band in public.
The appearance mattered because Blackmore, who said he was 81 and had not played rock music in 25 years, had spent the night before hinting that something was coming. In a podcast appearance, he said, “It’s gonna be interesting,” then later explained that he was likely going up for an encore with Deep Purple and had already let Ian Gillan know in advance. He even joked that he had sent his AI pigeon to Portugal, where Gillan lives, to ask how the singer would feel about a little old-times’ sake reunion.
That made Wednesday’s moment more than a nostalgia lap. Blackmore co-founded Deep Purple in 1968, and the group’s long split after a 1993 fallout had seemed to close the door on any easy reconciliation. The band’s current lineup still includes Gillan, Ian Paice and Roger Glover, and Blackmore had not even shown up for Deep Purple’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2016.
That history is what gave the Jones Beach appearance its weight. Blackmore had been told in 2016 that the touring lineup would not reunite with him under any circumstances, even for a short performance, so his walk back onto the stage was not the kind of thing anyone could reasonably have expected from this band or this guitarist. After the song, Gillan praised him, calling him the founding member and “the immortal Ritchie Blackmore,” and adding, “Thanks, Ritchie. I’ll see you in the bar.”
What still is not clear is whether Jones Beach was a one-night exception or the beginning of anything beyond a single encore. Blackmore framed it as a secret, and the facts available point to a one-off reunion rather than a new chapter. For now, the surprise is that Deep Purple and its most famous former guitarist found just enough common ground to play their signature song together again, and did it in front of a crowd that had every reason to think the opportunity had passed.
