Originally Posted by
Terry
I'm not even sure Blackmore could play with Purple these days even if he wanted to and they wanted him to...
Although Blackmore never came and flat-out said so, the buzz a few years back when he reformed 'Rainbow' and did some gigs in Europe playing an entire set of Deep Purple/Rainbow tunes in the traditional, electrified hard rock combo milieu was that [Blackmore] wanted to revisit the hard rock stuff while he still physically could because he was beginning to suffer from arthritis in his hands and he worried that in not too many more years he physically wouldn't be able to play anymore.
As to what Ford said, at least this version of Purple has three members of the definitive lineup...but, yeah, how are they calling that 'Yes' with just Steve Howe? But I bet they'll price the tickets as if they had three or more members of one of the definitive Yes lineups onstage...I think Chris Squire has passed away...who the fuck knows who else from either the 1970's Yes groupings or the 1980's 90215 Yes lineup is still around...I mean, who the fuck knows from 'Yes' anymore?