| Anyway, first up we
have Thunder, in a role that they can't have experienced for a long
time - opening act, with no sound check!! If they cared they didn't
show it, even though the sound was a bit suspect for the first
couple of songs. Fortunately the partisan crowd carried the vocal to
opening number Dirty Love while the guy on the desk did some frantic
knob twiddling, and by the time River Of Pain kicked in things were
much improved. Danny Bowes was clearly enjoying the big stage/big
venue/big crowd thing immensely, charging around like a man
possessed, and using the stage extension at the front to great
effect, connecting with anybody and everybody that wasn't waving
their arms, clapping along, screaming out loud or jumping up and
down as demanded. Obviously their set
was only 45 minutes or there about, so some of the normal nonsense
they get up to at their own gigs was toned down a bit, but we still
got old (Gimme Some Lovin', Love Walked In) and new (Devil Made Me
Do It, I Love You More Than Rock & Roll). We also got treated to a
damn fine version of Low Life In High Places, which is probably my
favourite of their extensive back catalogue, and it killed - nice
acoustic on a stand stuff from Luke Morley to start, and then a
right old smack when the electric guitars kick in. What a start to
the night.
Whitesnake nail their colours to the mast from
the moment they take to the stage, which now has a multi-media show
at the back, plus two huge screens either side of the stage for
those at the back or those that had forgotten their glasses. The
band tear into Best Years from the latest CD Good To Be Bad, and
before he's sang even a note it looks like David Coverdale is ready
to go twelve rounds with Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson combined - talk
about pumped up!! He manages to find every pretty girl in the front
half of crowd inside of two numbers, and continues to play to their
fantasies during the "Love" quartet of Deeper The Love, Is This
Love, Lay Down Your Love and A Fool In Love - never one for much
variation in subject matter was old Cov!!
Over the first ten songs we get a perfect
balance of new and old, with five songs pulled from the new CD - a
welcome shift after several years of touring the old greatest hits
set. We still get Fool For Your Lovin', a stripped down version of
Ain't Gonna Cry and the welcome return of Ain't No Love (In The
Heart Of The City) to the set, all of which sounded awesome. After a
flashy question and answer style guitar solo thing from Doug
Aldridge and Reb Beach, they step up a gear with Give Me All You
Love Tonight and Here I Go Again, before a stupendously good version
of Still Of The Night closes things out - Aldridge in particular
showing his amazing chops on a nice gold top Les Paul, making me
wonder if old golden-locks John Sykes could have done any better. I
guess we'll never know, but probably not……….
You could hear several conversations along the
lines of "how the fuck are Leppard gonna follow that??" as you
fought your way through the crowd to the bar, and queued for an
overpriced under chilled Carlsberg, but they did. Trust me they
did……..
Leppard aren't making quite so much of their
new CD as the boys from the 'Snake are, but we do get a couple of
numbers early on - C'mon C'mon and Nine Lives. Other than that it's
the greatest hits, but what a selection they have to draw from -
Animal, Pour Some Sugar On Me, Armageddon It, Hysteria, Rocket, even
the mega cheesy When Love And Hate Collide, and they all sounded
spot on.
Phil Collen in particular impressed with his
fluid guitar work, while Rick Savage propped up the bottom end with
his bass, and the top end too with his excellent backing vocals.
Vivian Campbell sports a couple of nice axes in a very 70's shade of
metal-flake blue (guitars from the sparkle lounge anyone?? Ok,
no…….) while Rick Allen continues to amaze with his 100% unique
technique behind what looks like a combined acoustic and electronic
kit. Yep, that's him with only one arm - amazing.
Joe Elliott fronts the whole thing in fine
style, and even pulls out an acoustic for stripped down versions of
Bringing On The Heartbreak and Two Steps Behind, giving us a chance
to get our breath back a bit, and squeeze some sweat out of our
t-shirts. Oh yeah, the multi-media thing at the back had gone into
overdrive during Leppards set too, with an endlessly changing set of
images and graphics that complemented the song perfectly, even
adding an animated welsh dragon at the beginning of the show
specially for tonight's set.
Their cover of the old David Essex chestnut
Rock On, probably the most impressive track from the covers only CD
Yeah, was next up, before Photograph and Rock Of Ages had us all
baying for more. Fortunately we didn't have to wait long for the
guys to return triumphantly to the stage and pound through Bad
Actress from the new CD, prior to hitting us with the sucker-punch
of Let's Get Rocked.
All in all this was a truly amazing
show/event, and fair play to Whitesnake and Def Leppard for
recognising that the sum was significantly greater than the
individual parts - definitely the way to go in my view……….
|
