Deep Purple - The Infamous Ritchie Blackmore Incident At The 1974 California Jam in 60FPS

In 1974, Deep Purple played one of the craziest American rock ‘n’ roll festivals, the Californian Jam, in a set which ended with Ritchie Blackmore attacking a cameraman. Their sensational performance – fueled by backstage aggro – climaxed in an orgy of destruction by Blackmore. At the end of Space Truckin’ he smashed his Stratocaster repeatedly into a camera operator’s lens. He went on to destroy several more guitars before a madder-than-expected explosion in his Marshall stacks set his hair on fire. And Ian Paice’s. And most of the road crew’s. David Coverdale: “We were supposed to go on stage at sunset. That was actually written into our contract. But the California Jam was running ahead of schedule. We’d just flown in by helicopter and I remember being in my backstage caravan, pouring myself a scotch and Coke, when somebody came in and said: “It’s time for you to get out on stage.” “Ritchie wanted Purple to be the first band to use lights on stage. He refused to go on stage until the contr