The complete recording of the 1971 Frank Zappa concert that inspired Smoke on the Water (the venue B
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I apologize for the slightly sensational title, but I did not have room to fit the entire history of the incident into the title. In short, a fucktarded fan shot a flare gun into the rattan rafters of the venue (the Montreux Casino) of a Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention concert on December 4, 1971, in Montreaux, Switzerland, on the shore of Lake Geneva. Deep Purple were in a nearby hotel preparing to use that very casino as a recording studio for [I]Machine Head[/I] the next day, and watched the fire and how the smoke drifted out onto Lake Geneva. This left them fucked for recording space and they had to scramble for substutions.
[video=youtube;9lpFeopjJhI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lpFeopjJhI[/video]
If you don't want to listen to the entire concert, skip ahead to 1:20:32 for the immediate lead-up to the fire, and the evacuation as the fire burns the venue and starts burning the band's equipment before the recording's stops.
Zappa and the Mothers took a week's break after the fire. At their first concert after the break, someone from the audience pushed Frank off the stage and onto the orchestra pit's concrete floor, and he never fully recovered from it. Rest in peace, Frank Zappa.
In case you didn't pay much attention to the song until now, here, listen for the lyrics:
[video=youtube;arpZ3fCwDEw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arpZ3fCwDEw[/video]
[QUOTE]We all came out to Montreux
On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didn't have much time
Frank Zappa and the Mothers
Were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun
Burned the place to the ground
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky[/QUOTE]
Additional reading on Wikipedia:
[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Zappa#1971.E2.80.9372:_Accident.2C_attack_and_their_aftermath"]Frank Zappa[/URL]
[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Casino"]Montreux Casino[/URL]
[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_on_the_Water"]Smoke on the Water[/URL]
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