Leppard Do It Again
Whitesnake and Def Leppard with Black Stone Cherry (20th June 2008 - MEN Arena)
OK, here's my waffle about our night of pure rock... It was a good'un!
MEN are crap
Well, it was a lovely day and Rich and Mark turned up at the house good and early so we could all be organised for a change. We were all showered and chippied-up well in time on this day and raring to go as we drove into town good and early. The atmosphere around the arena was pretty up and happy as we walked up to the place. We were walked into the arena at about 6.50pm, which we though was plenty early enough, but were shocked to hear the sounds of a band from the arena floor. Sure enough, we ran into the arena and saw that Black Stone Cherry were starting there set EXTREMELY early to a barely third-full hall. We were a little pissed off as out that as our ticket said the show started at 7.30pm. We found out later after getting our ticket stubs back (if you have a standing ticket, you exchange it for a poxy paper wristband when you first enter the arena floor) that some tickets had start time 6.50pm written on them and not 7.30pm... Yeah, thanks MEN, you knob'eads!
Black Stone Cherry
ANYWAY, we got to the floor and to watch BSC as they ploughed through their first number. The crowd seemed to be on their side from the start and the sound was pretty good and loud for an opening act. They had also been given generous use of the light rig, which gave the show a big feel to it.
I'd been wanting to see this band for a long while and had bought the debut album last year after having it heartily recommended by KFK, so I was really happy when they came one and delivered a great show. The band sounded great and tight and blasted through a selection of numbers from their debut seedee as well as chucking in a new song from the forthcoming album and a Hendrix cover. They had so much energy and bounced around the stage with hair flying for the whole set. Their performance was so infectious that it didn't take long to convince the non-believers in the crowd that the band were worthy to be on the stage. The whole thing was worth watching just for the drummer alone, never mind the rest of the band. He was pulling all the shapes and had huge hair and was as solid as a rock, even if he was cracking and dropping sticks. The band and the crowd had a whale of a time, basically. They played for about thirty minutes and left everyone begging for more. Their cover of "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) was a nice finishing shot as they bid the audience farewell for now.
By this point, I'd found Jill and Ric who came in half way through and I'd heard from Pete (with Wendy) who was having a nightmare getting to the arena, thus missed BSC and the first two Whitesnake numbers. We then decided to go and check out the merch and get a drink and all that. T-Shirts were OK and I bought a Whitesnake Lovehunter top (£25) and Kez got TWO (!) skinnies (Lep and BSC) at twenty quid a pop. We saw BSC do their meet-and-greet but didn't queue up and just let Kez get all excited by waving madly at them until they waved back, which they eventually did. They seemed like nice fellas from where we were.
Whitesnake
Halfway through queuing up for a well over-priced water, the lights went off and Skritesnake's intro tape started. I left the girls in the queue (as you do as a gentleman!) and went to catch the start. Opening with a number from the new album, the band sounded strong and Cov's voice was good. The current line-up of Doug Aldrich (guitar), Reb Beach (guitar), Uriah Duffy (bass), Timothy Drury (keys) and Chris Frazier (drums) certainly did a good job of providing a powerful backing to Coverdale's voice through an eighty minute-ish long set. We had been separated from Rich, but I found him standing about ten people in-front of us in the crowd.
Coverdale's voice was pretty good throughout, although he did rely on the audience to sing a lot of his choruses for him and some of his high notes sounded forced and uncomfortable and had a tendancy to not quite get up there. That said, he has reportedly had some vocal problems over the last month or so and even had to cancel a show due to illness recently. Maybe he was just having an off night, as his voice was not as legendary as I hoped it would be. But on the flip-side, he was in great spirits and kept the audience on his side with his "Roger Moore of Rock" stage banter, although these days, he seems more like the "Leslie Phillips of Rock". His jokes about his nipples and contant grabbing of the crotch (as well as kissing his fingers and tapping his heart) kind of grated against the classic Coverdale poses (mic stand in the air followed by running hand up and down it - you know the one! - etc.) For the most part though, he was great to watch and every inch the Rock God.
You could tell that it was not their stage show. The lights were good, but the dodgy album cover scans behind what looked like Leppard's Sparkle Lounge curtains didn't look great. The walkway into the audience worked very well, but there seemed to be a light problem as it was very dark and you couldn't always see Coverdale when he came far forward.
The set started well with a "new-song-old-song" pattern, which provided balance and familiarity for those who had not bought the excellent new Snakes album. "Love Ain't No Stranger" was excellent and it was good to hear how the band end "Fool For Your Lovin'" so I could record it and play it to the band so we could rip it off when we next rehearse that song. It was all going so well right up to the point where a stool appeared and Aldrich walked on with an acoustic and started plonking out a quiet version of "Deeper the Love". I'll freely admit that my heart sunk at this point. There was no time in a shortened arena show set to f*ck about like this. Luckily, it was short and led into a slightly lumpy rendition of "Is This Love" which didn't quite hit the right stride for me as it just wasn't slinky enough, but then they went into a terrible guitar solo spot which just went on forever and prompted a text from Rich saying "Oh stop, it's ghastly" (Bad News joke). It was pretty rotten and led into a reasonable, but over-long "Fool in Love". To make matters worse, the stool came out AGAIN after this. Luckily, it was for "Ain't Gonna Cry No More" which was OK, but by this point momentum was lost.
Thankfully, Cov picked it up from this point and it was pure classics from here-on-in. The final run of songs restored the pace and quality and brought the main set to a close with a storming "Here I Go Again". Again, he got the audience to sing most of it and screetched the last notes, but he carried it off with some class and a lot of balls. It was a shame that we only got "Still of the Night" for the encore and not the storming "Burn / Stormbringer" medley that he's done recently as the second encore, but he spent so much time pissing about with the set's mid-section that there was no time. Then again, he may have left it as not to completely destroy his voice as they are strenuous tunes, to say the least.
So there you go, a reasonable show, but a bit of a let-down for me as I expected more. the mid-section was just disappointing when you compared it to the start and end of the set. It was such a strong start and a great finish with a real flabby middle... I think I can relate to that!
Def Leppard
There was the usual waiting around as they dragged Whitesnakes crap off stage and it started to become clear that the stage was even huger than it looked with more ramps and platforms for walking on and even a few more lights. I had a quick chat with Rich and Mark whilst Kez and everyone went to the bar and the loo. The fellas would stay where they were and I'd stick with the others as I didn't fancy the crush. So I went back to chat to Pete and co whilst we waited.
I was thrown by the fact that there was no use of G'n'R's "Coma" to signal the last few minutes before the show and they just used "For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)" instead, which was a nice touch. Now, to be honest, before tonight I was thinking that since the 'Snakes album was so good and the live album sounded great, that they would make it really hard for Lep to deliver tonight. But as the lights went out, the video screen erupted with a spanking new intro film showing the history of the band and the band came on and Joe shouting "GUI-TAR! DRUUUMS!" before the rest of the band blasted into "Rocket", it didn't take any longer than the first verse to let it hit us like a tonne of bricks that Leppard had REALLY raised their game and were going to lay waste to the other acts on the bill. The last show I saw on the "YEAH!" mini-tour was OK and they played well enough, but it was not a really spectacular gig. But I think that the rounds of America they've played as co-headliners with people like Journey and Bryan Adams for a few years since have really done them good as they were tight and energetic and played it to win in for us. The music just flowed and the stage show was great (more in a minute on that).
Lep repeated the "new-song-old-song" pattern for the first twenty-odd minutes and the new songs sounded superb nestled amongst the older classics. The video screens showed some great new accompanying films which brought the whole stage show to life in a way that Whitesnake jsut failed to do. This along with the video screens showing close-ups of the stage action (as 'Snake also had, to be fair) allowed the crowd to feel part of the action, even if they were at the back. There was some great stuff happening on the screen. There was even some scantily clad lovely in the "Nine Lives" video for the gents in the audience to make up for the girls having Viv and Phil striding around with their shirts off!
I had to ring Marky-Boy during the chorus of "Make Love Like A Man" as he was texting me all night taking the piss about it as it's obviously his favourite Lep tune and he loves it so much. Lord knows what it sounded like down a mobile phone connection.
The set was very "Hysteria" heavy, which was to be expected. It is a shame that they didn't get more "Pyromania" stuff in there, but since they were playing a shortened set it was expected. There was only "...Heartbreak" played in it's "In The Round In Your Face" arrangement and without "Switch 625" from "High and Dry" and nothing from "Slang", "Euphoria" (much to Rich's dismay), "X" or "On Through The Night". There could have been lots of changes to the set, but to be honest, I didn't really care on the night as they just sounded so good.
There was the obligatory acoustic slot which featured everyone but Mr Allen playing from the front of the runway into the crowd. Joer gave us a bit of banter here and my, my hasn't he got a foul mouth this tour?! If you were at Birmingham a few nights before or have heard the audience tapes of it, he was even worse there with his effing-and-blinding. Terrible, it's a family show, Joe! Anyway, we obviously got "Two Steps Behind" and then "...Heartbreak" (like I noted before). It was a real shame that they didn't do "Switch 625" as I love that tune, but instead, they went straight into "Hysteria" which was interesting. It worked OK.
The only bit that was slightly dodgy was Sav's insistance on taking a bass solo to introduce "Rock On", which is a waste of time. He spent a lot of it just running across the stage in between plonking the strings. Well, it is his band, I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, so whatever. Rich did think that they were going to go into "Pearls of Euphoria" but was probably absolutely gutted to get something from "YEAH!" instead!
So there we all were, having a great old time, dancing away and singing like f*cking loons whilst the dad's over to our left were staging their very own Oldie's Mosh Pit. There was also some knob behind us splashing his pint over me and Ric. He eventually dropped the whole thing and when we both turned around, he just looked hurt like we'd spilt his pint and said "Well, it was my pint I dropped!" Give a sh*t mate, I got your sweaty beer all down the back of my short's-wearin' leg, you knob. He then started to pogo only to meet with the wrath of Ric's elbow, which must have hurt as the guy moved away. Anyway, the crowd were generally really into it and they were even standing on the sides, which didn't happen last time I saw Lep at this arena. The atmosphere was generally great. The place was not full, but it was getting there, which is a testament to the continuing pull of the bands playing tonight.
The next morning I gave the Lep set an 8.5 on the Lep scale, 10 being the Birmingham '92 Adrenalize tour show. I couldn't fault the performance apart from the bass solo (which was out of trhe way quick enough) and the set list (which I wasn't THAT upset about). The set wasn't as heavy or balls-out-rock as previous shows, but that was OK as I can understand that they did need to trim the set to fit it into a double-headline timeslot. Songs like "Foolin'" and "Rock, Rock" were kind of missed to give a little balls to the night, but what they did play did go down very well, apart from "Rock On", which got a muted, but polite response.
The end of the gig then rolled around quick and it was chucking time as they played Stumpus Maximus and the Good Ol' Boys storming version of "Release Me" which we dutifully sang along to. Rich and Jill put in a virtuoso performance of the tune on the camera, which was fun. We wandered out into the night and had a quick scout about before saying "bye" to Jill and Ric before heading to the carvfeeling a little hoarse from too much singing.
On the whole, as you have read, it was a great gig with a top opening act and amazing Lep show but with a slightly disappointing 'Snakes set. It was a great atmosphere and a great fun night out and I would have been happy with just Black Stone Cherry and Leppard to be honest, but at about £40 a ticket with two major bands and a top opener, the value for money was top notch.
Set Lists
I'm sorry to say that I can't remember running orders for all the bands bar Leppard, but here's a crack at what was played.
Black Stone Cherry
These were a few of the songs in the set... If I find a list, I'll post it.
- Freight Train
- Hell or High Water
- Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)
- A New Song
Whitesnake
The order is possibly wrong, but it's generally correct... I think!
- Main Set
- Best Years
- Fool For Your Loving
- Can You Hear the Wind Blow
- Love Ain't no Stranger
- Deeper the Love (Acoustic)
- Is this Love
- Wretched Guitar Solo
- Fool in Love
- Ain't Gonna Cry No More
- Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City
- Give Me All Your Love
- Here I Go Again
- Encore
- Still of the Night
Def Leppard
This one is correct, I checked!
- Main Set
- Rocket
- C'mon C'mon
- Animal
- Nine Lives
- Make Love Like A Man
- When Love and Hate Collide
- Bass Solo
- Rock On
- Two Steps Behind
- Bringin' On The Heartbreak
- Hysteria
- Armageddon It
- Photograph
- Pour Some Sugar On Me
- Rock Of Ages
- Encores
- Bad Actress
- Let's Get Rocked
Black Lep Snake
The vid isn't working at the moment... Soz, like!
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© 2006 Graham T. Ebbrell