Whitesnake
Tour 2003

David Coverdale
Marco Mendoza
Tommy Aldridge
Timothy Drury
Doug Aldrich
Reb Beach

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On the road with Whitesnake

After many years of obscurity, notably since the Coverdale/Page project with Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page in the early '90s, David Coverdale and a revamped Whitesnake have taken it out on tour again.

Mr. C released about three albums since then but they basically went unnoticed. He continued to work with Adrian Vandenberg from the hairspray days, but after 1989's Slip of the Tongue, gone were Rudy Sarzo, Tommy Aldridge, Vivian Campbell, and Steve Vai.

Along with Vandenberg, Coverdale also worked with former Heart drummer Denny Carmassi for several years. I couldn't find out what happened to Carmassi, but according to pooralbert david's web site, Vandenberg is happily enjoying a career in his homeland of Finland and doesn't want to be away from his baby girl. Mr. Aldridge has come back onboard, along with guitars-for-hire Reb Beach and Doug Aldrich, along with bass player Marco Mendoza and Eagles keyboardist Timothy Drury. Complete band member info can be found at www.davidcoverdale.com.

Having seen Deep Purple many times and Rainbow once, I just had to go down to Toronto to see WS. As we baby boomers get older, a concert like this lets us slip into the past, at least for one night. The concert was excellent, even though the band hasn't been into the studio and didn't play any new material.

The song list was something like this: Bad Bad Boys, Slide It In, Slow an' Easy, Love Ain't No Stranger, Here I Go Again, Still of the Night, and Judgement Day from Slip of the Tongue.

Dokken opened the concert, but I didn't care because I don't know their music. Then whilst in line for a very expensive beer, we heard Bad Bad Boys at a very high volume, so we hightailed it to our seats for WS. The sound was great, but the guys looked like little people. We were sitting about halfway up the back end of the Air Canada Centre, and the stage was about two-thirds of the way toward the other end. So, as usual, I plotted my mission to make it towards the front of the stage, but didn't muster up the courage until too late - just after WS had finished and before the Scorpions took the stage - but at least now I was front row centre.

I was stopped twice going down two different aisles, but on the third try, no one stopped me. But I had left my buddy Glen back in our seats, so I had to spend an extra $20 for some guy's ticket so I could go back and get him. The two of us were actually shown to our seat(s) by an usher - two guys with one ticket!

And he actually sent us to the wrong seat, and we were getting hassled by a European-looking woman. Then we shuffled our way down to the proper seat, but by this time Glen said he would rather go back to our seats. So I enjoyed the Scorps front row centre with a circle of total strangers. No mind, we had a great time.
I can't really comment on the WS musicianship because I was too far away.

One highlight of the night was when the Scorpions' drummer put on a Toronto Maple Leaf jersey. He yelled to the crowd to "kick my ass", which I assume in German is a good thing. But many in the crowd kind of looked around at each other with confused looks on their faces because they thought he had said, "kiss my ass". Unless you have 20-20 vision, make sure you get good seats for any concert you are going to. I really regret being so far away. And chances are I won't be seeing WS again. I have a brief concert review posted at the Whitesnake web site: that's www.davidcoverdale.com, click on tour, then tour reviews, then Toronto. Later all.

The boys in the band. All photos courtesy of David's web site.