Blackmore's Night-Paris Moon

SPV
2007

Despite my love for Ritchie Blackmore’s guitar playing I have avoided this project until now. I avoided it because my fear was that it would be rather dull and pretentious and this live DVD/CD didn’t do much to disspell that fear. I do believe that absolutely any form of music can be played with energy and integrity and those factors go along ways. However any type of music can be dull and tedious if not enough is put into it. I think Blackmore’s Night falls into the latter category. There is no doubt that Mr. Blackmore still has the talent and his fingers still move rather nimbly on the strings of his instrument. Yet fire in a musician doesn’t just come from the body, it comes from the heart of from the spirit and this act is lacking spirit in a major way. Vocalist Candice Night has some range, but her performance really seems to range passable down to being rather empty. I think renaissance music could be done well if the act just went after it and the music was the goal. Aside from a lack of fire the other major problem is that they seem so self-aware. Everything just seemed rather stilted and unnatural as renaissance style was often plugged rather into primarily uninspired and hollow songs. Candice Night seemed to blush and be so proud of this music that I think she would have bowed on every single song if she could have. One thing Ritchie Blackmore had never previously been was dull, not even when Rainbow started becoming pop yet this DVD was sorely testing my concentration. For technical matters I would say the picture and sound quality are fine. If you like renaissance music then there really has to be something out there better than this and Blackmore fans will just have to resort to pulling out their old Deep Purple and Rainbow albums.