deep purple smoke on the water california jam

A big part of the reason was another first: the setting of the stage sets for each band ran on rails. The festival was however so well-organised it ran well ahead of time. They reasonably had chosen the best time to go on for their stage lights to be the most effective. They chose to go on during sunset, thus pushing Emerson, Lake & Palmer to the last performance. It was the first time a major band arrived specifically for a music festival in their own plane.Īs headliner, Deep Purple had originally been given the choice of when to go on stage. They had just completed a month of shows in the US as they arrived for what looked like a big finale in front of the biggest audience anyone had ever played to.ĭeep Purple arrived for the concert in their own chartered jet, the Starship, with their name painted on the plane’s sides. The highest show attendance was still the Woodstock festival outside of New York in 1969, but only a few thousand had actually purchased tickets before it was made into a free festival.ĭeep Purple had just regenerated into their third line-up, popularly referred to as “Mark III”, which included new members David Coverdale (vocals) and Glenn Hughes (bass/vocals) alongside stalwarts Ritchie Blackmore (guitar), Jon Lord (keyboards) and Ian Paice (drums). It also had the highest paid attendance and highest gross in history. The festival set the record for the loudest amplification system ever installed. It attracted somewhere between 300,000 to 400,000 fans. It was a gigantic event co-headlined by Deep Purple and ELP, held at the Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, California on 6th April 1974. This fully-restored edition contains a missing track, bonus camera angles, commentaries and many other bonus options.California Jam (often simply called Cal Jam) was more than a rock music festival. It made for a visually astonishing climax to the set, and almost got the band banned from playing live in America again. As the show came to a close, Blackmore - angered by troubles backstage - took his revenge on one of the TV cameras, before exploding his amps and destroying several guitars. The set list includes tracks from 'Burn', as well as classics like 'Space Truckin'' and 'Smoke On The Water'.

Their explosive set is presented here on DVD for the first time. The undoubted climax of this tour was headlining the California Jam Festival at Ontario Speedway in California, in front of 200,000 people. Deep Purple were the biggest selling album act in America when they embarked on a 28 date tour promoting their new album 'Burn'.

Deep purple smoke on the water california jam