Ritchie Blackmore Leaving the Door Open for Future Rainbow Shows

Disappointed that Ritchie Blackmore has only booked a handful of shows with his new Rainbow lineup? Take heart — this could be just the beginning.

Blackmore appeared on Rich Davenport's Rock Show with his wife and Blackmore's Night bandmate, Candice Night, and though the duo are promoting a new album, talk eventually turned to his highly anticipated "return to rock" after nearly 20 years spent focusing on traditional music. Even though Blackmore made it clear this is just a temporary revival for good times' sake, he also hinted at the possibility of further Rainbow shows.

"Blackmore's Night will go on, and this is just a brief intermission of playing some good old rock, but with some good friends and some good musicians," said Blackmore. "And hopefully everybody's there for the same reason, which is it's good music and it's nostalgia, and hopefully everything goes well. If it works, we'll do, obviously, more dates. We're only doing three this first time. But, like I said, if it works, we'll do more later on." You can listen to the interview below.

Fans hoping for new rock music from Blackmore should temper their expectations. He admitted that arthritis has been "creeping up" on him over the past several years, making it more difficult to play, and also touched on the technical difficulty of switching back to a pick after growing out his fingernails to play acoustic for such an extended period. More importantly, he still doesn't seem to feel particularly connected to the earlier chapter of his career from an emotional standpoint.

"In rock, I was just kind of churning out heavy metal riffs, and it was becoming stale and kind of redundant," said Blackmore. "I got kind of bored with the whole thing. Now, I'm always sitting with a guitar and playing finger-style when I'm trying to come up with new ideas and progressions, and it's a very natural process. In rock, it was becoming contrived."

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