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Rainbow Throwing Tomatoes at Joe Lynn Turner Theatre de Plein Air du Parc Expo, Colmar, France - June 21, 1981   Rainbow and Ritchie Blackmore at Parc-Expo: Next time, maybe (Colmar Newspaper 1981) But what is he doing in this mess? No need to ask him: if Ritchie Blackmore persists with Rainbow, he must have his reasons. And it's not certain that he will deliver them all. It's not impossible in fact that they partly have nothing to do with music. Let's be mean: What if he was content, on the verge of forty, to secure his retirement? Come on: Sunday evening, at the open-air theater, there was a bit of a Blackmore train. Impassive in front of his drummer - or at the front of the stage -, jacket and velvet pants, classic cut, he lowered the neck of his lead guitar, as if he were saying at the same time to the thousand fans (who came for him?) "This is what you want, well there you go!” And to coldly deliver his riffs, his breaks brought out a thousand times and his solos which (always) have their little effect. But little more: the thrill is no longer there. Damage? No: it's all part of rock. Nothing disappointing there. No more than in the sound too loud, much too harsh, since we had to block our ears with cigarette filters (an old known trick) from the first part, ensured (on time and to the end) by the young people from Def Leppard. Nothing disappointing either, in Joe Lynn Turner's whim: when a box of oranges left the front row, the Rainbow singer, then alone on stage, got upset. Quite simply, yes sir. As if the whole venue had booed him. As they participated, clapped their hands and sang "Long live rock and roll" as one. He got really offended and disappeared backstage. “Rainbow” curtain? No: Blackmore - after a moment of hesitation - certainly wanted to save the day. Alone in his turn (what a ride!) he launched into “Maybe next time”, a ballad for solo guitar. And the whole group came back, interrupting Daddy Ritchie (the Ingrates), to finish Turner's works. This time the curtain had fallen. And even though the little red lights on the amps flickered, they wouldn't come back. No reminder. No ending. No big Ritchie Blackmore. Disappointing? No, more like a cold breath, on a summer night, while at the open-air theater, we were waiting for a heat fart. "Long live rock and roll." Anyway...  Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott (Louder Sound 2024) Have you had any experiences of The Man In Black? Def Leppard opened for Rainbow in Europe in 1981. I remember Ritchie saying to me, 'I want you to watch the audience tonight during Long Live Rock'N'Roll.' So I stood at the side of the stage and he winked at me and then went down in to the pit with a box full of tomatoes and started throwing them at [Rainbow singer] Joe Lynn Turner. Of course, Joe couldn't see Ritchie because of the spotlight and so he starts berating the crowd thinking they're throwing them at him. People talk about the moody man in black, but I saw a different Ritchie Blackmore when we toured with him. Ritchie Blackmore (The Record Collector, August 1998) The best thing we did to him was in France. It was an outdoor gig and it was miserable: it didn't have a roof and the audience were sitting there in the rain. I didn't even bother getting changed because I hate France and didn't want to be there and didn't want to play. Joe did this bit in "No Release" where he got the audience to participate while we backed off a little bit, and then we came back in. The audience were miserable and not participating. So I said to the drummer and bass player, "Come on, we're leaving". So we came offstage and Joe didn't know he was on his own. We got down in the orchestra pit and Joe couldn't see us because the floodlights were on him and we started throwing vegetables at him. So he started swearing at the audience, "You bastards, you French bastards", and he was picking up the tomatoes and throwing them back at the audience, who were now going, "We're not going to take this anymore", and throwing things back. Finally Joe realised it was us, but it was too late, the audience were in uproar. Joe Lynn Turner (reaction on his Facebook page) It wasn't Tomatoes...it was the Deli plate from the dressing room... hysterical ... Elliot remembering that is a laugh in itself! I'll never forget either... was the best prank Ritchie pulled!” Jean-Marie Voisin (fan on Facebook) I was at the 1981 show in Colmar (21/06/81), front row, in front Ritchie. The oranges did not come from the audience but from the big pit in front the stage. This pit was dark, but I saw the man who threw the fruit on the stage. Look in the article (from a French newspaper), Joe was alone on stage. And it is easy to guess who was able to make a joke to Joe Lynn Turner. Jean-Marc Gaebele (fan on Amazon France) Like me, everything has not aged very well! moreover, a personal resentment with the master! let me explain .. June 21, 1981, Colmar, my very first concert .. Rainbow, tour "Difficult to cure"; an excellent pre-group, I'll come back to it later and the Man in Black .. 10 minutes of concert! and a "Fuck offf Colmar!" Reason? a crate of tomatoes thrown on stage... while the excavations at the entrance were very strict at the time! Ten years later, I met, through a job on the site itself, with the "thrower" of tomatoes! 500 francs to do it?!? ; nice sum! the ticket at the time was worth 30 francs! This story is true! the guy in question was chief of staff of the "wine fair" during long time and responsible for the site during the other concerts ...  |