Location: Ljubljana / Hala Tivoli / Slovenia
Date: 11/30/2011
A good five years after Whitesnake first visited the land on the sunny side of the Alps, David Coverdale and company came back to our capital. Unlike last time, Whitesnake now had a very decent fresh record in their pocket, “Forevermore”, which, after the lukewarm “Good To Be Bad” (2008), proved that the band’s studio strength hadn’t completely faded in the years since the reformation.
Before the stars of the evening took the stage, 40 minutes in front of an almost full house in the big hall of Tivoli went to the Northern Irish “greenhorns” The Answer. These guys have been seriously active live for the last half decade. In that time they’ve put out three studio albums and shared stages with rock giants like the Rolling Stones and AC/DC, and last year they even played the main stage of the prestigious High Voltage festival in London. In short, in ten years of existence they’ve achieved more than most of their peers ever will. The Answer bet on raw blues-rock rhetoric in the vein of Led Zeppelin. Led by the charismatic frontman Cormac Neeson (who, intentionally or not, recalls Robert Plant), the Irishmen brought an energetic hard rock show to the stage, with the occasional detour into calmer bluesy waters. The sound was now and then rounded out by harmonica from the aforementioned Neeson, clearly showing that the band looks for its idols among the musicians of the sixties and seventies. Among their own material, spiced up with tracks from the current record “Revival”, The Answer slipped in the classic Rock ‘n’ Roll Outlaw by the Australian rascals Rose Tattoo, warming up the backsides of the older folks in the crowd. The young Irish outfit proved a smart choice for a support act and did the job with flying colors, so the beer they drank after the set was more than well earned.
Then came a long, half-hour wait for the Whitesnake show to start, which kicked off after the taped The Who classic My Generation. The musicians fanned out across the stage in the dark and opened the set like a hard rock bulldozer with the punchy Bad Boys and Give Me All Your Love, before sending us back to 1984 with the phenomenal Love Ain’t No Stranger.
David Coverdale is a man worthy of respect, with unique vocal and stage charisma, but it’s clear that at sixty-plus his vocal cords no longer obey him as much as he’d like. Already in the opening part of the show, Coverdale, like the sly old foxes do, left the choruses to the crowd, and the other musicians frequently jumped in to help with backing vocals, not to mention that some of the highest vocal registers were the product of a pre-recorded vocal track! But let’s be honest, most of the people there weren’t too bothered by this kind of cheating. The jam-packed Tivoli hockey arena was then filled with the sound of songs from the current record “Forevermore”, Stel Your Heart Away and the title track Forevermore.
The name Whitesnake has always stood for a crew of exceptional musical masters. Their mastermind Coverdale has always been surrounded by great talents, though the lineup changes relatively often. For the last decade he’s had an outstanding guitar duo by his side, Doug Aldrich (ex-Dio) and Reb Beach (Winger), who before the midpoint of the show unleashed a real arsenal of guitar wizardry and sent Tivoli dreaming with their lightning-fast fingers. The band’s return to the stage followed, along with a metallized Can You Hear The Wind Blow, the only visit this time to the album “Good To Be Bad” (2008), which was met with a poor reception from the band’s die-hard supporters upon release precisely because of its aggressive production. In that regard, the B.B. King cover Rock Me Baby came in handy, since blues crumbs have always been the band’s trademark. The first single from the current album, Love Will Set You Free, also got a warm reception, and then the spotlights swung over to the drum kit and the man in charge of it, Brian Tichy. He showed off the full range of his skills and wowed the gathered crowd with proper show tricks, but I was wondering whether a 15-minute drum solo is really what I want from a Whitesnake gig. I don’t think so.
Next came a surprising number, a stroll through the motifs of the most recognizable rock’n’roll melodies of the sixties and seventies, made up of classics by Free, Queen, Cream and Survivor, and as the cherry on top of the cake, Coverdale and the gang seasoned the “medley” with a half-version of one of their most erotic songs, Slow ‘n Easy. The string of songs felt super relaxed for the band, and the musicians, in great spirits this evening, proved with it that they’re not just a well-oiled machine but also a collective that knows how to swap routine for spontaneity at just the right moment. Without a doubt one of the best moments of the night.
In the closing stretch, Whitesnake walked through their most recognizable radio hits and sent the whole hall into ecstasy. Without Is This Love, Fool For Your Loving or Here I Go Again, you just can’t do it, like it or not. Once the noise died down, Coverdale, with a slightly rusty voice and no accompaniment, sang the immortal Deep Purple classic Soldier Of Fortune and, together with the whole band, tipped it over into two more dusty Purple gems, Burn / Stormbringer. As a farewell to Ljubljana, they served up, as expected, the fine melodic rocker Still Of The Night, a vocally demanding composition that a visibly worn-out Coverdale could only barely keep up with.
What can you say after a spectacle that drew more than six thousand souls, young and old, to Tivoli? Anyone who came to have a good time definitely got a hefty dose of hard rock anthems, but those of us who follow the band more closely have long known that Whitesnake’s live reach has shrunk over the years. Coverdale’s worn-out vocal cords are the product of a cruel reality that nobody his age can escape, which is why long-winded solo spots (by otherwise highly skilled musicians) and similar “cheats” have become a fixture. But you be the judge of whether Coverdale, and with him the entire Whitesnake legacy, is ready for retirement or not… let me remind you that two or three years ago, after accusations about his form, the offended old guy publicly “threatened” to do just that.
author: Urban Bolta
photos: Helena Vertačnik
WHITESNAKE setlist:
1. Bad Boys
2. Give Me All Your Love
3. Love Ain’t No Stranger
4. The Deeper The Love
5. Steal Your Heart Away
6. Forevermore
7. guitar solo
8. Snake Dance
9. Can You Hear The Wind Blow
10. Rock Me Baby
11. Love Will Set You Free
12. drum Solo
13. medley: All Right Now / Sunshine Of Your Love / Another One Bites The Dust / Slow ‘n Easy / Eye Of The Tiger
14. Is This Love
15. Fool For Your Loving
16. Here I Go Again
17. Soldier of Fortune / Burn / Stormbringer
18. Still Of The Nigh
