Band : Whitesnake
Album title : Live At Donington 1990
Label : Frontiers Records
Distributor : Rough Trade Benelux
Release Date : 03/06/2011
Release : CD

Whitesnake fans will be delighted that Frontiers Records is finally releasing this recording, both in a double CD version as on DVD.  The end of the eighties, beginning of the nineties was the period when Whitesnake was at the peak of its success.

Now it must be said that Mr. Coverdale has always succeeded in putting together a very good band, albeit mostly for a very short time, since musicians were constantly going in and out.

After the release of the highly successful ‘1987’ album on which none other then Mr. John Sykes handled the guitar, but who left the band before the record was released in came famous Dutch axe-wielder Ad van den Berg, who wrote most of the songs for the next album ‘Slip Of The Tongue’, yet did not assist in the recording, since he had a serious wrist injury and was unable to play.  Not that it mattered much, since the guitar parts were skillfully taken over by none other than Steve Vai.

So it was with two guitar virtuosos that Whitesnake started touring in 1990, and played on the Monsters Of Rock festival on the 18 of August 1990 at Castle Donington.
It must be said that since the release of the ‘1987’ album, Whitesnake had lost it’s blues roots a bit, tending more towards pure hardrock, and since neither Mr. Vai, nor Mr. van den Berg are known for their bluesy way of playing, it is clear that even the older, more blues-tinted songs from Whitesnake sound different.
Not that it is a bad album, but I wonder who’s going to buy this, besides the die-hard Whitesnake fans.  More matured people like me, who’ve known Whitesnake in that period and the period before, might also be tempted to buy this, if only to hark back some memories to those times.  But younger rock fans ?  I doubt it, even if they’ve heard of Whitesnake before.

9090/100

Erik Morren.