Def Leppard, Whitesnake
Manchester MEN Arena
20th June, 2008

View: standing, front

30 years of Whitesnake, and while the vocal cords sounded a little hoarse, DC hit the top notes with gut-wrenching venom. Mixing the best of new album tracks Can You Hear The Wind Blow, Lay Down Your Love and Good To Be Bad with timeless classics Fool For Your Lovin’, Love Ain’t No Stranger, an acoustic Deeper The Love and crowd-pleaser Is This Love, all hands were in the air. Ain’t No Love prompted the obligatory singalong followed by a thunderous Give Me All Your Love Tonight, anthemic Here I Go Again and blistering encore, Still Of The Night. Joe Elliot and the boys brought the house down. A magnificent performance with a spectacular multimedia backdrop for opener Rocket, classics Animal, Make Love Like A Man, When Love And Hate Collide, an awesome acoustic Bringing On The Heartbreak, and perfect Hysteria followed. The sweet tone of Phil Collen’s guitar heralded Armageddon It and the hits kept coming with the monumental Photograph and chorale of Pour Some Sugar On Me. Rock Of Ages and encores of Bad Actress and a tumultuous Let’s Get Rocked left everyone in no doubt – they had been.

Reviewed by Howard Jones
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