I'm posting this more than a week after the event, because my Blogger hasn't wanted to play ball recently...
On Monday 14th July, one of the girls in work was celebrating her birthday, and coincidentally Def Leppard, supported by Whitesnake and Thunder, were playing at the CIA in Cardiff that night. She's a BIG fan of Whitesnake (or David Coverdale...) so said months ago that she wanted to go to the gig and asked who wanted to come - I refrained from jumping at the chance for just long enough to phone the other half, to see if he wanted to go, and then told her with very little excited jumping up and down, that we'd both love to go. The excitement being almost entirely due to the fact that I've been a Def Leppard fan since I was 14 and hadn't actually seen them live before, or thought I'd get the chance!
Thunder were excellent, they could have done with longer than 45 minutes to be honest, as it really wasn't long enough to fit in all their best/biggest songs. Danny Bowes was hardly recognisable with short hair, but the voice was very much present and correct - I don't think I'd be being unreasonably disrespectful to the other two frontmen that night if I said he was the best singer there.
Whitesnake were initially a bit disappointing - the new album is good, but I think practically everyone there was there mainly for "1987" (it's certainly the album I know best) and after a large number of songs I didn't know, standing there getting pushed and squashed was losing its appeal! Particularly as Coverdale didn't appear to be singing entirely live all the time (he was getting a lot of help from the guy on keyboards, and there was a certain amount of "singing" with his mouth closed). Fortunately, they remembered why they are where they are, and the second half of the set was entirely made up of the big hits - the crowd perked up and the set ended well, and the lady from my office was in seventh heaven!
Finally, Def Leppard, the real reason I was there, took the stage and were brilliant throughout. Joe Elliott might not be the best singer in the world, and his voice might have been suffering a bit by the end, but they're still a great band. Highlights included "oh my god, Phil Collen doesn't look a day older", Joe in a Welsh rugby shirt, Rick Savage's bass solo and the awesome version of David Essex's "Rock On" that followed it, every one of their big hits - in fact, there were too many to list, but general opinion is that "Rock On" was the very best bit. All in all, it was totally worth £37.50 and the pain of standing up for 5+ hours!
The night in photos follows...
5 comments:
Brilliant Viv! So you had a passable evening then. How did your foot hold out?
Rather you than me, but my feet hurt just thinking about it... and you know how I love people.
I suppose I could stay there until I learned to enjoy.
Glad you like it.
Have you heard anything yet ?
BTW, the pictures are very good considering the circs.
I'd have loved to be able to go to that!!! I always loved Def Leppard and Thunder so even though I was never a HUGE fan of Whitesnake as I thought the whole trouser stuffing thing was a bit horrible on someone that old I am still sick with jelousy!!! Very glad you enjoyed though, well worth the money and discomfort I think.
My foot just survived - mainly by dint of standing with almost my entire weight on my other leg, but that led to the other leg hurting like hell the next day!
As to the people bit, you know how much I love them myself! I very quickly wished the tickets had been seated so I didn't have to be pressed against sweaty, yucky people!
And Kiki - I wish you could have been there, I was thinking about you all the time, it's partly why I took so many pics, so you could see them. You'd have loved it. Whitesnake were good, once they started playing stuff we knew, but if you thought Coverdale was bad 10-15 years ago, it's even worse now he's a pensioner! He's still an out and out cockrocker!
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