Favourite character(s) in Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water"

Funky

voted for stupid

without whom we would have no smoke on said water imo

Same
also cos

Has to be stupid.

One could argue that the Rolling Truck Stones Thing was a character in its' own right.

Without founder/impresario Claude Nobs there’d be no Montreux festival to be burned down.

there's a pair of youtube music reactors whose channel ident is them rocking out to the chorus of Smoke On The Water and every time I come across them I hate it more.

Claude, for saving the kids.

Was that his dog singing with Pink Floyd at Pompeii?

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There's apparently no connection between Claude Nobs and the singing dog Mlle Nobs.

Having watched the Classic Albums episode on Machine Head, the most vivid impressions of the song for me are from the third verse - the band recording, isolated in the massive deserted Grand Hotel (although in a lot of the live renditions, they didn't even bother performing this verse). The whole album resonates for me with the thoughts of empty hallways and rooms echoing with drums and amps. So I'll say the band as narrators are my favourite characters.

Someone who was apparently there casts doubt on the "flare gun" story:

The fire started WITHIN THE AUDORORIUM. It was December 4th 1971 and the Swiss were preparing for Christmas. There were Christmas decorations hanging from the ceiling and lots of colorful paper mache. The fire was started by a young man from Eastern Europe (who fled the very next day back home). I do NOT think that it was started by a flare gun as it says in the song, but by the boy throwing lighted matches in the air, and one of them got stuck on the very low ceiling. Remember that it was a very old building first built in 1881 and practically all made of timber and thus highly inflammable. So the fire started right above where the boy was sitting on the low lying ceiling beams. It spread very quickly…

I had no idea there was a recording of the show as the fire broke out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lpFeopjJhI

The bass tone on this song!

"Fire! Arthur Brown - in person!"

Voted for Funky Claude. Did Claude Nobs genuinely have the funk? Was he on the one? Or was this more in the sense of that other 1972 cultural high water mark, Funky Winkerbean?

Went with the narrators, for being petty / detail-oriented enough to call out Frank Zappa and the Mothers by name.

Do you mean "call out", like accuse? Because Zappa seems to have handled the situation calmly and rationally.

No no -- aren't they complaining that Zappa got the best recording facilities?

Here's the Stupid with a flare gun:

https://darrensmusicblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/main-qimg-a2ca605460e0ad209e7ba21c09eb8ef7-c-1.jpg

xp: I don't think they were complaining, per se. Deep Purple were simply next in line to use the hall. This wasn't beef.

So handsome!

aren't they complaining that Zappa got the best recording facilities?

Deep Purple came to Montreux to record (without an audience) in the Casino, which was closing for the winter. Zappa was playing the final show of the season when the fire happened.

Thanks for clarifying, Halfway and Peace. So there's some stoicism there!

This song was part of my upbringing in a Poland fresh out of Communism. Went twenty-something years without hearing it. Had no idea how good the lyrics were until the 2020s.

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Funky Claude! The hero, robbed of his glory.
https://images.genius.com/66162df8ae48dc9587e5c6bb631b7a8c.170x213x1.jpg

No matter what we get out of this poll
I know, I know we'll never forget it

Wish I could go back and throw a vote to pulling kids out the ground.

https://deepsouthmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/babiesinpatch-699x1024.gif