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Quebec City, Canada, 1980

By Gary Poronovich

The show was on Aug. 14, 1980, at some theatre in Quebec City (maybe 1000 people in the crowd). It was rainy, cool and damp. Then everything went downhill from there. Rumours were persisting that Blackmore was with Evans and when the show finally started (two hours late, around 11pm) the lights on stage were kept low.

The opening bars of Highway Star started and for one brief second I thought that the Man in Black was there! Instead it was some hack (Tony something) dressed in black, flinging a beer bottle into his speaker monitior. The image was further shattered when Evans said in his rather low voice "I`m a Highway Star". They actually tried to play the full version of the song (6-7 mins). Next song was Hush, then And the Address, Mandrake Root and that`s pretty much it.

The riot started, I believe, because the crowd on the floor (I was in the balcony) realised that they had been duped. I remember the first two or three rows being ripped out of the floor, then I left. I believe the show ended shortly thereafter although I heard rumour that they played two more songs (Space Truckin' and Lazy) but I doubt it. The crowd on the floor was rather upset.

The local paper mentioned a few weeks later that a class action suit was in the works against the band, but nothing further ever developed.

Looking back, the plus side was seeing an original member of the world's greatest band.