Let’s say this right off the top: “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple is probably the most overplayed song on classic rock radio. There, I said it! Seems like it’s on about once an hour, more often at peak drive times. On the other hand, how often have to seen it performed LIVE by the band, back in the day? Not as often?

We found a great video from 1973 when the band played in New York. What strikes me as I watched this video several times is, well, first off it looks like they’re playing in a high school auditorium. (Probably not, but still looks like it.) And it’s just five guys and their instruments: no light show, no pyrotechnics, no outrageous costumes or makeup and no back-up dancers. There’s also a nice little interview with the band’s keyboard player, the late Jon Lord, at the beginning and end of the video, who seems truly baffled at why people keep asking him more than 30 years after “Smoke on the Water” was released what the song’s about?  Really? In the end he simply says he tells people, “If you want to know the story, listen to the words.”

“Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple was released in May 1973 and was off their successful 1972 album Machine Head. In fact, according to the interview on the video with Lord, the band thought their single “Never Before” was the hit, and their American record producers insisted it was “Smoke on the Water.”  In 2004, the song was ranked number 434 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest songs of all time, and was listed as number 4 in Total Guitar magazine’s Greatest Guitar Riffs Ever.  Wonder what 1, 2, and 3 are?

Here they are, Ian Gillan, Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord, Roger Glover, and Ian Paice aka Deep Purple, singing their ultra classic hit “Smoke on the Water” LIVE in New York in 1973.

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