Deep Purple To Play Montreux Jazz Fest

05/20/2000 7:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(5/20/00, 7 a.m. ET) - Deep Purple has joined the lineup of this year's Montreux Jazz Festival. The group will play on July 22 as part of the event's "Last Night Explosion"; the bill for that evening also includes the Lovebugs and the Rollins Band.

It's not the first time Deep Purple has visited Montreux. The band has been "on the Lake Geneva shoreline," where the events described in "Smoke On The Water" took place.

The band was recording in Montreux when the members were invited to see Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention in concert. During the show, someone in the crowd fired a flare gun, causing the building to catch fire. According to Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover, all the names, places, and incidents in "Smoke On The Water" are true.

-- Bruce Simon, New York

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