Whitesnake / Def Leppard / Black Star Riders: Sunday 13th December 2015, Nottingham Capital FM Arena

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Black Star Riders

‘The Killer Instinct’ tour

Ricky Warwick (vocals, guitar) / Scott Gorham (guitars) / Damon Johnson (guitars) / Robbie Crane (bass) / Jimmy Degrasso (drums)

This venue keeps changing its name! We queued in great long snakes for ages outside in the cold December air and subsequently missed the start of BSR’s set. At the time I didn’t know anything about the band (more fool me) so I wasn’t particularly bothered about being late in. However, once inside and exposed to the music I was hugely disappointed at our tardiness. Let’s put it down to a really early kick-off (6:45pm) or my mate Nigel Foale’s decision to leave later than intended, but I ended up quite angry at having missed some of this band’s set.

It was immediately obvious that they were descended from the classic Thin Lizzy line-up and having later looked them up on t’interweb I learned that they were in fact the natural progression from that wonderful band. Incredibly, BSR had the smallest set of the three bands on show tonight as they were deemed to be the support band; by the end of their performance I would have been quite happy if the situation had been reversed.

I have managed to track down a Maximum Volume Music review of the gig which said, “It’s possible that there’s a harder working band than the Black Star Riders. If there is, Lord knows who. MVM was at the band’s first ever gig getting on for two and a half years ago and when frontman Ricky Warwick said that night “we want to play 300 shows a year” it sounded like something to say. Turns out he meant it. Ish. The non-stop road work – not to mention two stunning albums – has meant the band are superbly well oiled. A set tonight that sees them spilt half between their own stuff and Thin Lizzy classics (lest we forget, after all, how this band started) is little short of stunning. “Bound For Glory” and “The Killer Instinct” both sound like the best songs Lizzy never wrote, and “Soldierstown” takes the Celtic theme and runs with it until it can run no more and “Finest Hour” is a real highlight. And when they are bored of writing the best hard rock songs of 2015 they merrily call on the best hard rock songs ever. “Are You Ready?” and “Jailbreak” really are that and are given new life here. If you don’t believe that this is the band Warwick was born to be in – apart from The Almighty of course – then watch “Whiskey In The Jar” which closes things here. Black Star Riders are phenomenal.” He’s right – they were!

They played a brief, heady mixture of their own material – with the clearly obvious TL ‘sound’ – and a couple of old Lizzy rockers, finishing with ‘Whiskey in the Jar‘. I was struck by how good they were and just how much lead vocalist Warwick sounded like Phil Lynott which, I’m sure, was simply down to the fact that he had a strong Irish accent. The necessarily short, high-energy set was greatly appreciated by the assembled throng.

I would subsequently hunt out the band’s first two albums and play them regularly ever since.

Great band! 👍

Setlist: All Hell Breaks Loose; Are You Ready; The Killer Instinct; Jailbreak; Bound for Glory; Soldierstown; Finest Hour; Whiskey in the Jar

I have a small card flyer for this gig…And two videos filmed at the Nottingham gig…

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Def Leppard

The ‘Let’s Get Rocked in the Still of the Night II’ tour

Joe Elliott (vocals, guitar) / Phil Collen (guitars) / Vivian Campbell (guitars) / Rick Savage (bass) / Rick Allen (drums)

Def Leppard were accorded joint top billing with Whitesnake on this three-band evening. It was the the first and so far only time that I had seen the band and I was quite impressed although I have to say that my abiding memory will always be that Joe Elliott is carrying an awful lot of timber these days!

DL certainly didn’t let us down, tearing through a good, long set pretty much made up of their biggest hits. The Def Leppard Tour History website tells us that “Joe called the audience the loudest so far on the UK tour; Joe’s mic slipped out of the stand halfway through ‘Let’s Go’ and fell on the front of the stage and when he picked it up it didn’t work so he missed a line before being handed a new mic from the crew at Phil’s side of the stage.” And the Nottingham Evening Post said, “Unlike some of their peers, they have bothered to put a new album out and the select tracks they played got a rip roaring appreciation from the gathered throngs. But they were never going to leave you wanting more. Huge screens played out the pictures of younger times that everyone remembered too well, while the gang on stage proved they could still hit the notes – from the fantastically euphemistic Let’s Get Rocked to the heart-wrenching When Love and Hate Collide.”

The blogger from Maximum Volume Music gave a much more detailed review, thus: “The first line of the Def Leppard’s first song tonight rather sums up their dilemma. “Do you really, really wanna do this now?” is the repeated refrain of “Let’s Go” but it could also be the band themselves asking the question. The Leps, are still the Kings of British arena rock. Everything about their slick set screams that and they have some magnificent songs. “Animal” – which follows “……Go” is not least amongst them and it’s far from the only one. It’s just that they do seem to have rather got themselves into a situation where their fans only want the classics. There is – it has to be said – a rather muted atmosphere for another new song in “Dangerous” and singer Joe Elliott seems to have picked up on this, reckoning that it’s between Newcastle and here for the quietest crowd of the tour. The big acoustic singalong of “Two Steps Behind” feels a little flat for example, and yet when they play the “Hysteria” era material the 8000 strong audience are enlivened and emboldened. Those songs such as Rocket” and a brilliant “Armageddon It” deserve the praise they’ve always had and “Let’s Get Rocked” is still absolute ludicrous excellence. Elsewhere Elliott isn’t perhaps as able to hit the high notes as he used to be and the massive ballad “When Love And Hate Collide” suffers slightly – not that anyone hugging their special one notices too much. The encore songs both come from the tour de force of “Pyromania” and “Rock Of Ages” is huge while “Photograph” is one of the best songs of its type ever made, although here again the singer might be having a slight off night.”

For my own part, as I have said, I was actually quite happy to see a “greatest hits package” as I hadn’t seen them before. Anyway, it was good fun and I was impressed by their show.

Setlist: Let’s Go; Animal; Undefeated; Dangerous; Love Bites; Armageddon It; Rock On; Two Steps Behind (acoustic/Joe only); Rocket; When Love and Hate Collide; Switch 625; Hysteria; Let’s Get Rocked; Pour Some Sugar on Me; Encore: Rock of Ages; Photograph; Kings of the World (taped outro)

I also have a genuine, old, tin pin-badge of the band…

There are lots of videos of this gig to be found on YouTube, mostly good quality too.

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Whitesnake

The ‘Let’s Get Rocked in the Still of the Night II’ tour

David Coverdale (vocals) / Joel Hoekstra (guitars, vocals) / Michele Luppi (keyboards) / Michael Devin (bass) / Tommy Aldridge (drums, vocals) / Special Guest – Bernie Marsden (guitars)

The third and final band of the night was Whitesnake. I’ll start with my abiding memory of their performance which was that Coverdale needs to retire now before he tarnishes his legacy any further because he really was struggling with the vocals. Or maybe that was just my opinion? You can easily judge for yourself as there are plenty of videos of the gig out there on YouTube if you’d care to hunt them down.

The blogger from Maximum Volume Music reviewed the gig thus: “Get your trousers off?” responds Lord David Of Coverdale to a shout from the audience. “Madam, I’m sixty-fucking-four”. With that he stops, looks at the woman concerned and flashes her the dirtiest smile imaginable. “Ok, I’ll see you later…….” There’s never been anyone quite like Coverdale, and there’s no band quite like Whitesnake. From their bluesy beginnings – and original guitarist Bernie Marsden and his legendary Les Paul join the band tonight – to arena rockers they are all here. “Fool For Your Loving” and “Here I Go Again” straddle the two worlds brilliantly, and “Bad Boys” still sounds admirably raw. But there’s a welcome third strand to this 90 minutes. Earlier this year Coverdale added Joel Hoekstra – who’s birthday it is tonight – to the band and revisited some of his Deep Purple catalogue. The results were magnificent. “Burn” and the stripped back “Soldier Of Fortune” are equally excellent in the live setting here. Pleasingly Coverdale’s voice holds up better than it sometimes does and this is a set that proves that there’s plenty of life in the dirty old dog yet.”

From that review it looks as though perhaps I was in the minority? Hmmm…

Anyway, I greatly enjoyed the set which was a fabulous mix of old Deep Purple classics – just how superbly good is ‘Burn’?! – and some Whitesnake classics too. The band had released their ‘Purple Album’ earlier in the year so this was another opportunity to promote that, with many of the tracks representing a large portion of the set. It was a bonus to see original axe-man Bernie Marsden appear from the wings in time for ‘Fool For Your Loving’ and ‘Here I Go Again’, two absolute belters on the night.

It’s certainly hard to fault the effort of the band; they really do put on a great show and I was glad to have finally caught a band that I have long admired without ever getting to see them in the flesh. But would I go and see them again? Well, that all depends on how well Coverdale’s vocal chords hold out and, sadly, I’d guess that’s not going to be for very much longer.

Setlist: My Generation (The Who) taped intro; Burn; Bad Boys; Love Ain’t No Stranger; The Gypsy; Give Me All Your Love; Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City; Mistreated; You Fool No One; Drum Solo; Soldier of Fortune; Is This Love; Fool for Your Loving (with Bernie Marsden); Here I Go Again (with Bernie Marsden); Still of the Night; We Wish You WellAnd here’s a small, unofficial tin pin-badge and patch that I bought at the time of this gig…