When you anticipate a release that captures a monumental show from a legendary band, the expectations are rightfully high and great. “Live at Donington 1990” is the audio-visual documentary of Whitesnake’s second headlining performance at (arguably) the best festival in the world, the prestigious Monsters of Rock Festival.
In 1990 Whitesnake was on a roll and nothing seemed capable of stopping them! “Slip of the Tongue” had paved the way and the band hit the road for the unavoidable promotional trek. What we get with this album is a really good show by the British –turned into American- group band in front of 72.500 eager fans that were treated almost exclusively with songs cued from Whitesnake’s three last albums (at the time). So, we get to hear lots of excerpts of “Slip of The Tongue”, “1987” and “Slide It In” while the “bluesy” era is represented solely by the rendition of “Ain’t No Love In The Heart of the City”. Needless to say that the classics “Crying in the Rain”, “Fool for your Loving” and “Here I Go Again” are depicted here in all their glory but in their more commercial, latter versions. Personally, I wasn’t a supporter of that move by Mr. Coverdale as I was never a big fan of the 1987 sonic shift. Steve Vai may be a brilliant guitar virtuoso but he didn’t add anything substantial to the integrity and musical identity of Whitesnake (let alone the fact that the inclusion of the otherwise excellent “For The Love of God” took the place of a possible song candidate from Whitesnake’s back catalogue). On a quite positive note is that David Coverdale’s voice is at a top notch form and reaches absolutely high levels of vocal performance.
The double c.d. is accompanied by a DVD that includes the Donington show (good camera angles there but unfortunately an inferior picture quality) plus a 20-minute documentary of that era.
This is a release forwarded essentially to the Whitesnake fan-base…as for the rest…well, check it out first before you rush to the nearest record store.
