Whitesnake "The Purple Album"

Next thing you'll be telling us is that Steppenwolf isn't metal.

 

The show in Tacoma last night was decent. Unfortunately, the venue was awful and the sound suffered (it's a large, flat room with the stage at the end). Up to the drum solo Coverdale's voice was OK, but he croaked his way though Stormbringer and the rest of the show but seemed to recover for the encore. He seemed to be having a lot of fun. Tommy Aldridge was definitely the star.

Exact same setlist as has been posted.

Not my video:

 

IMHO, the best album he ever made.

 

No. Bo Diddley was.

Get it straight.

 

Bo knows metal.

 

As this was my first Whitesnake show I don't have a point of comparison, but I loved it! The strong backing vocals helped, but Coverdale was way better than I expected.

Agree that Tommy Aldridge is a star...wow is he fun to watch! It's cool to see a drummer that seems to enjoy every second of his performance; he has mazing energy even at 64.

Set closer "Still Of The Night" was worth the price of admission alone...the entire band was on fire.

 

Oh, please, he's doing the same thing in that ridiculous video supplied in this thread sometime back. On any of the "high" parts of the song he throws the mic to the audience to sing it form because he can't hit that register anymore (and this is with the song downtuned). I'll grant you, the band sounds good, but he sounds terrible. Between a croak and shriek and there's little control in terms of what he's doing. Not only that, but when you've got one of your guitarists and the keyboard player covering for parts you can't hit plus his vocals have a a$$ ton of effects on them, you've got a problem.

 

I just discovered Coverdale and the boys will be here in August. Unfortunately, between the state of his voice and that set list it's hard for me to muster much enthusiasm. But I haven't seen Whitesnake since the 1988 Texxas Jam, so I just might go for old times sake. At least I won't need to get the new album to familiarize myself with the songs they'll be playing

 

The man is in his sixties. I'd rather he get some assistance than stop touring completely.

 

He could probably easily handle the stuff on Northwinds, Whitesnake, and some of the early Whitesnake albums. Instead he chooses to try and sing more of his crappy metalish songs (or recently metalized songs) when his voice clearly can't handle it.

 

Based on audience reaction, I would guess that about 2/3 of the crowd last night didn't know the Deep Purple songs and were there for the 80s hits. They're certainly not going to know the early Whitesnake stuff, much less the solo material. At best, he might be able to get one some into the set list from that material.

The crowd only really got excited when he rolled out the ballads.

 

That's a shame. But that's the business I guess.

 

Borrowed this off a friend who bought it. Haven't listened/purchased anything by Whitesnake/Coverdale since the Jimmy Page collaboration, which, save for a few songs, I quite liked. SOTT has it's moments as well, Vai was a bad fit, and I love that guy. Never heard anything by them/him after that.

Reading the comments here piqued my interest, as I enjoy MKIII and IV Purple, and thought this would be a nice tribute to his past just like he has said in interviews. I listened to this with an open mind, and blocked out the original versions, as hard as that was to do. I give it a 6.5 out of 10. The performances are good, I didn't expect Coverdale in his 60's to sound like he did even in '93-'94 with Page. I love the version of "Sail Away", Thought "Burn" was good. Others I liked were "Mistreated", "Might Just Take YOur Life" and "Gypsy". The production, along IMO is what drags this down. Maybe some of it is trying to shore up/hide Coverdale's vocal range. To me, it sounds like when you throw a big blanket over the speakers and you get that muddy sound. Guess I'm used to the sound of his pre-1987 records, or this is where I could not quite block out the original versions. And although he has said these are "Whitesnake" versions, a vocalist to handle the Hughes parts would have made it a little better....7 possibly. All in all, it's OK, probably will find it used at some point. May give his post-Page material a listen at some point.

 

Just found a pro-shot Tacoma video from when they were openers for the Crue in 1987 doing SOTN.

 

Trust me, Rolling Stone isn't the arbiter of truth...I was just point out that Deep Purple were called a heavy metal band even in the early 1970's...

Heavy Metal began in the late 60's and early 70's with the bands I stated...not with Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. That is revisionist history. Heavy Metal started out slow and plodding...not fast and furious.

Ahem...

 

It appears David is cutting down on the PURPLE tunes....but why?

A review by a MKIII fan:




Come Taste The Snake

Whitesnake live at Wells Fargo Center for the Arts (Santa Rosa, USA 2015-06-02)

(Not sure about my title but oh well!) I must say that the venue was easily the best I have
ever watched a show at. Plush mint condition seats and as the venue website says:
” The design of the theater makes all seats no more than 75 feet/yards? from the stage”.
I used to look at the ‘Made In Europe’ LP cover and wish I could see a show at a venue like
that. This was it!

Set list for the Snakes:
Burn
Slide It In
Love Ain’t No Stranger
Gypsy
Give Me All Your Love
You Keep On Moving
Forevermore
Guitar solo’s
Mistreated
You Fool No One
Drum solo
Is This Love
Stormbringer
Here I Go Again
Still Of The Night

Going off the setlist for the first show on May 28th, it is clear to see that both MKIII album
tracks “Lay Down, Stay Down” and “Soldier Of Fortune” have been dropped. (Time contraints
or fans(?) lack of interest perhaps?) Burn being a great opener as we know from the DP days,
got everyone excited. But then again, I have never seen lukewarm response to a opening
song by pretty much any band as the crowd is just glad the show has started! It became quite
apparent that I was in the minority of ‘fans’ that came to this show tonight as when DP songs
were played, you could tell that 80% of the crowd was not familiar with them.
I was in heaven hearing (probably for the last time live) DP MKIII/IV tracks
and my personal faves being ‘Gypsy’ and ‘You Keep On Moving’.

I personally enjoyed this concert more than the last two I have seen (MSG and DP) mainly
because I have never heard these songs performed live before. How great to have seen MKIII
in their day…David was his usual charming self…(someone recently called him “The Roger
Moore of Rock”!.. not too far off LOL)! My main regret was when I picked up my will call ticket
earlier in the day there were signs everywhere and on the tickets themselves that there were
to be “Absolutely NO cameras or recording devices allowed into the theater”. I, like a *******
left my small handheld (but very good) camcorder in the motel room. I could have got some
really good footage! Everyone there was holding up their devices so maybe someone got some
good footage that they will post on YTube. I hope so as the lighting and sound was top notch
all night. I recommend catching the WS Purple Album show wholeheartedly!

review by Scott W.

 

Wow, I can't believe that they'd drop the DP songs four shows into the tour. Going by the DVD, those were some of the songs that the band was the most excited about playing and I thought they were great in Tacoma last Friday. Like I said previously, the vast majority of the crowd was there for the 80s hits and really didn't care about anything else.

 

Ugh...not a single pre-Slide It In Whitesnake song...and a reduction in DP songs.

 

I wonder who "The George Lazenby of Rock" is?

 

Lame, but just goes to show how completely Coverdale rebranded himself in the late 80s.

 

Unfortunately he did what he had to do to remain commercially viable. Like Aerosmith, he wasn't going to get radio play unless he started doing ballads.

 

Proves my point that despite the "great" sales of this album, the vast majority of Whitesnake fans don't give a rip about Deep Purple Mk III stuff. Hell, I bet most don't even know Coverdale was in the band.

 

It's interesting and I wouldn't have guessed that. But it's easy to forget that most people in the real world are not obsessive music geeks like we are here.

 

You can hear what was going on in his throat in these clips. He's a little out of tune in spots, but the general tone of his voice is still pretty good. By the time I saw him on the 1989 tour, he sounded pretty bad in the upper register. And today? Almost unlistenable either in terms of hitting notes or in tone.

 

I didn't know when I first started getting into Whitesnake. I only had two Deep Purple albums at the time (Perfect Stranger and Machine Head).