Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Zagreb / Dom sportova / Croatia
Concert date: 15.06.2013
Attendance: 4,000
Ticket price: 200.00 HRK
A year and a half ago, when Whitesnake played Hala Tivoli in Ljubljana, crowds of their fans flooded in from across the whole former common country. This time the tables turned. On their new European tour Whitesnake stopped in Belgrade, then the very next day in Zagreb, in the big hall of Dom sportova, where the Medveščak hockey players and the Cibona basketball team play their home games. Since Whitesnake tour so often (you can catch them on European stages practically every year), there was no endless horde of Slovenian gig-goers heading to Zagreb, but you could still pick up the odd Slovenian word here and there in the sea of black.
Before you even go see Whitesnake, you have to know what the band can actually offer in 2013. In the second half of the eighties they were one of the biggest rock institutions on the planet, and a quarter of a century later they’re still extremely productive, both in the studio and on stage. Sadly, though, a long, intense music career and the years that come with it have taken a lot out of the band’s first throat, the legendary David Coverdale, who just can’t match his golden years vocally anymore. Still, propped up by a squad of excellent musicians around him, he continues to credibly carry the greatness of the Whitesnake name, so the moment their Zagreb show was announced, the only logical decision was that I (we) simply couldn’t miss it.
Opening the night were Ivan Mihaljevic and his Side Effects. The band builds its career on the guitar genius of founder Mihaljevic, whose playing style vaguely recalls Paul Gilbert or Richie Kotzen. In a half-hour set, the hard-hitting trio tore through a cross-section of their own ambient hard rock, and despite being short on personnel they filled out the sound well the whole way through. The band has serious potential, and even without much wider media exposure they put up a decent fight against the thankless job of opening for an act like Whitesnake.
After the stage changeover and a twenty-minute break, Whitesnake came charging out to the edge of the stage through rolling smoke and kicked off the show with Give Me All Your Love. Coverdale was saving his voice from the very first moment, resorting right at the start to the sly tactic of sharing the chorus with the guitarists, and he loaded a big chunk of the work onto the crowd’s shoulders too, whom he happily put to work for the rest of the evening, especially on the band’s best-known songs.
Whitesnake are marking the 35th anniversary of the band’s founding on this tour, so they gave the setlist a festive airing-out and slipped in a few gems that rarely make it into their live repertoire. Ready an’ Willing surprised all the fans of their early blues days, and Don’t Break My Heart Again stretched the smiles on the crowd’s faces even wider. But watch out! The stage execution of Whitesnake in 2013 is clearly subordinate to the metallized sound they’ve meekly followed since roughly the notorious album »1987« onward. There’s not much room left in their sound for bluesy charm. Instead, the guitar duo of Reb Beach and Doug Aldrich bets less on old-school grit and more on technical finesse and direct punch these days. The older hits are therefore greased with sharp guitar talk, so the difference in sound between, say, the live versions of Gambler (which Coverdale dedicated to fallen heroes, Mel Galley, Cozy Powell and Jon Lord) and Can You Hear the Wind Blow is barely noticeable.
A big eye magnet is drummer Tommy Aldridge. The man is already 62, yet he keeps his vitality and pounds the kit like it’s a joke, all while looking utterly relaxed, even playful. He’s a real showman, as he proved with his trademark drum spot in Steal Your Heart Away, which he finished off by playing with his bare hands, no sticks. With a style of pounding where all you see from below the stage is his mane whipping around, Aldridge unwittingly sneaked into my frontal lobe as a lookalike of another drumming giant, Mikkey Dee (Motörhead). Of course, Aldrich on the right and Beach on the left side of the stage didn’t skimp on showing off their wide palette of skills either. Their tight teamwork peaked in an alternating solo spot. Even though they repeat it every single night, thanks to their technical perfection and the emotion pouring out of their six-string instruments, they manage again and again to deliver a pleasing machine-gunning, which gives the boss a few minutes of rest, during which he’s probably clinging to an oxygen tank with both hands. A few crumbs in the second half of the show also fell to bassist Michael Devin, whose organ excursion served as the intro to Fool for Your Loving.
Despite his battered vocal form, David Coverdale in terms of stage presence still belongs among the very best rock frontmen. Dressed in tight pants and a shirt from his own brand that didn’t hide his chest hair, he still draws lustful glances from the gentler sex in the crowd despite his age. In the front rows there was even a comely young woman who, wearing nothing but a bra up top, was offering him her fresh flesh. Coverdale played sexily with the mic stand throughout the set, and with his well-rehearsed moves and huge charisma he kept the Zagreb crowd in check with ease. His worn-out voice thus remains the weakest point of Whitesnake shows, but given the magic of all the other building blocks of the concert, Whitesnake fans evidently keep forgiving the charming gentleman as they go. This time, one good reason for the pardon was also the attractive selection of songs mentioned above. In the encore he offered the acoustic ballad Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City, which Coverdale (just like two years ago in Ljubljana) stretched at the end with a vocal rendition of the Purple-esque Soldier of Fortune. For the farewell Whitesnake served up a run along familiar tracks, a monumental Still of the Night, during which the crowd, luckily, drowned out the frontman, who after a good hour and a half together was visibly spent.
»The White Snake« proved itself in Zagreb as a well-oiled machine and staged a show a notch more memorable than the one they recently played in Ljubljana. The material from the last two albums, which still clings tightly to the setlist, has by now settled well into listeners’ ears, so together with the band’s older standards they put together a pleasant retrospective stroll through their 35-year-long tour. Coverdale’s form aside, guys and girls, years from now we old-school rock lovers will still be hiccuping with nostalgia for gigs like this one!
Setlist
My Generation (taped intro)
1. Give Me All Your Love
2. Ready an’ Willing
3. Can You Hear the Wind Blow
4. Don’t Break My Heart Again
5. Is This Love
6. Gambler
7. Love Will Set You Free
8. “Pistols at Dawn” (guitar duel: Doug Aldrich & Reb Beach)
9. Steal Your Heart Away (plus drum solo: Tommy Aldridge)
10. Forevermore
11. Best Years / Bad Boys / Children of the Night
12. Fool for Your Loving
13. Here I Go Again
—encore—
14. Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City
15. Soldier of Fortune (“a capella” version)
16. Still of the Night
We Wish You Well (taped outro)
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