Review By: Alan Holloway
Rating: N/A
Label: Frontiers
Recorded in late 2011, this package is available with a DVD but all we got was a download of the two CD’s, so if you want to know what the concert looked like tough titties, because I haven’t a clue. I imagine old Cov was posing his arse off and Japanese fans were very appreciative, so that’ll have to do. There might even be a booklet with cool photos and stuff like that, but we didn’t get that either, so let’s concentrate on the music because there is, basically, fuck all else to do.
Let’s be honest here, Whitesnake are hardly likely to release a live album unless David Coverdale is on fine voice. He may be getting old, he may not quite have the range of the good old days, but Coverdale can still hold it together and howl at the moon like a young buck. The first CD features the band’s 70 minute headlining set, and naturally there’s a fair few classics shoehorned in. Opener “Best Years” reminds us that the Whitesnake brand is still alive and kicking in the studio, but it’s with follow up track “Give Me All Your Love Tonight” that things really kick off. We get “Love Ain’t No Stranger” as well, which is a stone cold classic in it’s own right. The evening ends with the power trio of “Fool For Your Loving”, “Here I Go Again” and “Still Of The Night”, and they are, of course, brilliant. What’s not brilliant, especially on CD, is an EIGHT FUCKING MINUTE DRUM SOLO nine tracks in. I doubt this is even that entertaining (at least more than once) on the DVD, but on CD it’s just boring. Doung Aldridge and Reb Beach get their own six minute spot a little earlier, and this is sort of entertaining but ultimately absolutely no substitute for a Whitesnake song. Fourteen minutes could have been MUCH better used, is my point.
Disc two is an interesting thing, with eight tracks recorded ‘on the fly’ at rehearsal or soundcheck, including banter between the band. It’s relaxed and includes some tracks not on the first disc, like “Fare Thee Well”, “Evil Ways”, “Lay Down Your Love” and acoustic versions of “Good To Be Bad” and “Tell Me How”. Interestingly, I found myself enjoying the second disc more than the first, as it is something different and doesn’t have any drum solos on it. Overall, the complete package is certainly worth buying, as I doubt the DVD will be a let down in any way.
Official Site: www.whitesnake.com/
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