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DPAS
LIVE REVIEW WHITESNAKE What can I say – it was almost exactly as I expected. DC and five anonymous backing men running through a set skewed towards Slide It In era Whitesnake, providing some great moments but an overall sense of disappointment. It was my first concert at the Arena and it was the usual soulless barn, reminiscent of Wembley. Capacity is about 10,000 and judging by where the curtain came across they had probably allowed for an audience of about 5,000. The band came on at 9:20, after the Burn intro tape (cheeky) and launched into Bad Boys. The sound was dire. Too loud, crackling in the ears and turning everything to mush, yet the sound rig didn’t look too different from Purple’s set up from last year. After a while, the volume came down a notch and Slide It In and Slow An Easy sounded great. Some of the best parts (as ever) were the chat with the audience and the ’A Capella’ renditions through the evening, which started with Wine Women & Song and included Bloody Mary, Sailing Ships and a sublime verse of Time & Again. David was obviously enjoying himself, driving the band and the audience on and for half the concert we were having a great time. When he wasn't pushing his voice too hard his singing was good, but a touch of croakiness when he started screaming. Then came the solos... The guitar intro was ok but the drum solo in Crying In The Rain was intolerably long. I thought that when Tommy Aldridge threw out his sticks we were finished but he carried on bashing away with his bare hands for what felt like another geologic age. More IS Less, Tommy (and less is more than enough). The band came back in with a reprise to remind us of what the song was that had started so long before, and the sound was too loud again. Unfortunately it stayed that way and the second half of the show was an inseparable wall of noise. David continued to work the crowd between the songs, and it was apparent what I was missing – the old band. If he had started any of those ad-lib songs back in the ‘classic Whitesnake’ days, the band would have probably joined in. After all, they helped write them. Instead, the new guys stood around like lemons, waiting to play the next song on the set list. When they got to play, they were very competent and threw the right shapes (for the late 80s/early 90s), but soulless. The Arena crowd rose to occasion for the Aint No Love choir bit, which DC reminded us that Newcastle had started back in 78. But of those on stage, only David had been there with us. The Arena announcements beforehand expected the band to finish at 10:50, but they were obviously running late. A very short break between set and encore, then back for Soldier of Fortune and Still of the Night, with DC letting us know he was going to get bollocked for overrunning (and looking like he was having too good a time to care). The show came to a close around 11:05 and the band looked like they had worked hard and had a good time. The same could also be said of the audience. However, it was a good, solid, competent rather than great performance. It lacked the warmth that I remember from those early 80s shows (that Company of Snakes can still manage) and it was really DC and his five best mates/employees of the moment. Too workmanlike for me. On the way out I heard someone say it was the best show he’s ever seen. Sadly, it wasn’t even the best Whitesnake show I’ve seen. On the other hand, it’s the best Whitesnake show I’ve seen in the last ten years. So, I suppose only two things could have improved it, one unlikely and the other illegal. The first would be the return of the three Ms, if only for an encore. The second would be if somebody had shot the Sound ‘Engineer’. Rather like the drum solo, some people in the Whitesnake entourage need to learn that we can gain more pleasure from a little less of something. review: Brian Jackson |