Birmingham, England - Fan Reviews

Fan Review - By Andylgr

Although I've been a long time fan of Whitesnake I've never seen them live before so I was actually looking forward to seeing them more than the Leps.

The house lights went down and in the dim light Coverdale was milking the applause as he came on stage. The lights go up and not for the first time in the evening in typical trademark fashion he's 'shagging' the mic stand at the end of the thrust stage and we're in to the opening track from their new album Best Years, (one of my favourites), although I'm not sure if many of the crowd appreciated it as an opening song though. However the 2nd song Fool for your Loving rectified that and got the crowd clapping along. Another new one followed, Can you hear the Wind Blow - which for me is possibly the best track on the new record, live it was very good and seemed to go down well. Love aint no stranger - another old favourite picked up the pace and got everyone singing along, before Lay down your Love dropped the atmosphere again. But like a rollercoaster it was back up again with Is this Love.

This is the point where for me things went boring, Coverdale leaves the stage (taking the life of the performance with him) and the band do first a guitar solo and then an instrumental track. Coverdale briefly rejoins them for another new one, A Fool in Love gain, before it breaks halfway through for a drum solo of all things. The song eventually finishes and thousands of people remove the matchsticks from their eyes, only to find its band introduction time. Yawn.

The show continues as we then get the oldie Aint Gonna Cry no More (Two Steps Behind style) acoustic at the end of the thrust stage. Ain't no Love in the Heart of the City gets a good singalong and finally we're beginning to pick up pace again, which continues aplenty with Give me All your Love which again includes another mass singalong, quickly followed by Here I go Again (minus the fit bird on a car unfortunately). To tip the atmosphere over the edge the set then closes with Still of the Night.

Apart from the 20min middle section - of solos, a new song split in half and band introductions - they were great. Coverdale worked the crowd and the stage brilliantly (mainly the thrust part of it, treating it like he had a 20ft dick in to the audience). The band are really tight and all in all they were very very good. Although at the end of my set I had my doubts as to whether they were true 50/50 headliners. They had no visuals on the screen apart from static logos and they did not have the full use of the stage.

The national anthem cues the arrival of the Leps and straight away we get the full impact of the big screen at the back of the stage as it scrolls through images of their entire back catalogue before announcing that was then, this now. The lights go up and Rocket kicks the show in and the place erupts. Straight away visually this is a BIG arena show - the screens showing the images linked with the song and the lights prove I was right that this was all along the Leps show and not to be shared with anyone.

The first of the new songs is second up and its safe to say that C'mon C'mon's gets a great reception and for me looks like a future live standard. Its worth looking out for the Steve Clark angel visual on the screen, very cool indeed. Make Love like a Man follows next unfortunately, not my favourite live, but it seems like I'm in the minority here. Armageddon It continues the party atmosphere before its slowed down with the bans biggest UK hit, When love and hate Collide. Nine Lives returns us to the new album before Sav gets his chance in the spotlight with a bass solo before Rock On. Which I love to hear live, again I'm probably in the minority.

It's thrust time then as the band, minus Rick Allen, take to the end of the stage for Two Steps Behind, which gets the crowd going (but only after Joe says that Glasgow the previous night were louder). Bringin on the Heartbreak keeps the acoustic theme going and gets the crowd singing along (of sorts) before it explodes in to an electric second half. Brilliant. Another ballad is up next with Hysteria. As we get in to the final leg of the show its brought to a rousing close with Animal, Photograph, Sugar and Rock of Ages. No matter what may be said about the Leps setlists being consistently the same, it cant be doubted that this is the best way to end a Lep show. Despite a slow start from the crowd they are eating out of the bands hands by now.

For the encore they return with a new one, a surprise in the encore slot, Bad Actress. Lets Get Rocked then closes to a rapturous reception. Yes the setlist was predictable, but that didn't seem to matter to the thousands that were there. I think the opinions of a few die hards matter little and I'm the band feel vindicated in the choice of songs judging by the reception they got at the end. For me the show was visually amazing and it was a great evening. But as I said before, this is clearly a Def Leppard show with Whitesnake as special guests. Despite Whitesnake giving them a good run for the money, I think going from crowd reaction, the Leps just shaded it. It was interesting to note that Joe seemed to be working the crowd more, maybe in response to the excellent David Coverdale? Anyway no doubt this will pave the way for more Lep double headline shows in the UK and put them back in the arenas where they probably deserve to be.

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Fan Review - By Phil Kemp

I was really looking forward to tonight's show, and the Leps did not disappoint! A truly excellent show!

Black Stone Cherry - Were very good and had a large number of the crowd watching them. I liked their music and will be checking out their debut album in august.

Whitesnake - The second support of the night were excellent. David Coverdale was on fine form, and certainly got the crowd involved. Doug Aldrich's guitar playing was fantastic, but the guitar solo he did with Reb Beech was quite boring and the drum solo didn't help. Their new songs went down quite well, but their hits made a bigger impact. A great performance all in all.

Unfortunately the Birmingham audience were not very enthusiastic all night, they made a fair bit of noise for Whitesnake, but sadly the Leps weren't as well received. The 3 Sparkle Lounge tracks made almost no impact, besides a few real fans loving every second of them. The same goes for "Rock On" sadly. I thought "WLAHC" would really go down well, but again the reaction was tame. "LGR" and "Animal" got the best crowd reaction all night, but that wasn't surprising. A few Whitesnake fans around me left before the Leps set. And to prove how lacking of enthusiasm the audience were, I was one of only a handful of people in my entire block to actually stand during Leps performance.

However the Leps were superb. The sound quality was far better than Whitesnake, there was far more energy from Leppard, and Joe was even better than Coverdale. The guys looked great and were phenomenal from start to finish. Joe really had to work the crowd for them to make any large amount of noise. The setlist was a bit disappointing, i have to be honest. But i suppose with this kind of package its to be expected. I still think "Let It Go" and/or "Action" or "Rock Rock" would have helped the set have more oomph.

"C'Mon C'Mon" "Nine Lives" and "Bad Actress" were absolutely incredible live, as was "Rock On" and "Heartbreak". Phil, Viv and Sav really demonstrating how the Leps backing vocals are unequalled by any other rock band around. Another world class performance by a world class band, its a shame Birmingham didn't show their appreciation some more!

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