The 1977 Rainbow gig when Ritchie Blackmore played one of his greatest performances – after two long nights in a police cell
The problem with musical mavericks is things can just as easily go south as stratospheric. Perhaps Ritchie Blackmore mused on that as he spent two nights in a Vienna police cell after the band’s Austrian show to a nasty turn on 18th October 1977. An unforeseen circumstance that put Rainbow’s next tour stop in Munich in serious danger.
“There was a problem with the hall manager; he had an attitude and I think when we went onstage, the audience got a bit rowdy and this manager was being a bit of a dick,” remembered Rainbow bassist Bob Daisley in an interview for the Rainbow Live In Munich DVD. “I think he put the house lights on, which really p****d Ritchie off. Ritchie lashed out with his foot… and he caught him right on the jaw and down he went”
Rainbow completed their eight-song set in hall D of the Wiener Stadthalle venue. But before the band and crew could get out of Dodge the police had been called with sniffer dogs in tow. According to Daisley, it was this police asset that
foiled Blackmore’s attempts to hide in one of the drum cases and be smuggled out of the ensuing chaos. Sniffed out, the guitarist was handcuffed and jailed “for a couple of days”.
Classic timing. Rainbow’s Munich show on 20 October was a big deal; it was due to be filmed by a German broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk for a TV special on its Rockpalast show. “We didn’t know when he was gonna get out or if the tour was gonna end or what was gonna happen,” remembers Daisley. “We were supposed to go on around 8.30 or nine o’clock at night and Ritchie had just got out of jail in Vienna and he’d just made it to the gig. We ended up going on at about 11.30 at night… but the audience were very patient.”
