Fifty years ago, December 4, 1971, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were playing at the casino at Montreux, Switzerland along Lake Geneva. Someone fired a flare gun, igniting the ceiling. Festival promoter Claude Nobs helped get concertgoers out, as did the Swiss firefighters. Zappa smashed a window with his Gibson to provide an exit. All 2000 concertgoers got out safely, even though the fire spread quickly and destroyed the casino. (It was rebuilt in 1975.) Frank and the Mothers lost all their equipment. Deep Purple was at the casino to record their "Machine Head" album but had to find a new location, the nearby, nearly empty Grand Hôtel de Territet. The song "Smoke on the Water" soon came together, telling the story of the incident, "Funky" Claude's heroism, and the band's use of the Grand Hotel. The band formed a bond with the town after the song began a hit. Sadly, Frank Zappa passed away in 1993, coincidentally on the anniversary of the fire. Fun to research all this, with the song's riff stuck in my head, LOL. Here is Deep Purple in the early '70s.
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