Dutch-German minimeet in Utrecht

[Basvarken]

Last weekend Uwe told me he was thinking about coming to Utrecht to see Whitesnake. He asked me if I would like to join him. Since it had been more than four years since we last met, I liked the idea very much. So we got the tickets for the concert. It was actually sold out, so I had to find them on some auction site.

Uwe came from Frankfurt via Düsseldorf, where Clifford Chance has an office. My home town Velp is normally only a one hour drive from Düsseldorf. But during rush hours it takes more than two... But still, today Uwe got here at my place exactly at the scheduled 18.30. How punktlich those Germans are!
We had dinner together and Uwe played my fake Les Paul Bass.
And then we were off to see mr Coverdale and his band.
Utrecht is a PITA to drive around. We took some bike lanes and one way streets the wrong way. But eventually we found place to park quite close to the venue.
The support act wasn't too bad. Their sound was even good.
And Coverdale was in better shape than last time I saw him. Six years ago his voice was totally shot and he had tapes rolling along. But tonight he sang live. And with a band where all members can sing, he left some parts to them or the audience. He actually sounded best in the Deep Purple songs, of which they played quite a lot.
Of course the perfunctory guest performance of Adrian Vandenberg was there again to close off the show.

All in all a very nice evening together with Uwe. Thank you Uwe for inviting me.

[TBird1958]

Nice!

Meeting our good moderator was indeed a wonderful time for me as well.
I need to make the pilgrimage to ze Fatherland, hopefully soon!

[Dave W]

Very cool.

[uwe]

I had my first Dutch lasagne, courtesy of Floor's excellent cooking skills!!!

[Chris P.]

Cool!

[gearHed289]

Nice. Would have loved to join you guys!

[uwe]

The concert had light and shade. On some songs (Burn as the starter for instance), Coverdale is painful to listen to, not because he misses notes or cannot pitch, but because his voice sounds so raw and distorted you could be forgiven to think that he had his larynx removed and was now overdriving his replacement electronic voice box, hardly any genuine tone left. But then, whenever he sticks to lower registers or just doesn't gear his voice up to overdrive, the natural warmth, body and authority of his voice is still there. And he really doesn't need to scream at the top of his lungs to he heard through the music though you wonder whether a reduced line up in Free/Bad Company mode instead of the formulaic Whitesnake "We beat baseball stadiums into submission"-wall of sound might not be a more effective and appropriate surrounding for his voice today.

And we learned that an EB-0L as played by Michael Devin (a nice and gifted man)

http://images.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http://assets.blabbermouth.net/media/michaeldevindreaproposal_638.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/whitesnake-bassist-michael-devin-proposes-to-actress-drea-de-matteo-on-stage-in-atlantic-city/&h=400&w=638&tbnid=9SN675TrmDiCHM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=144&docid=gFvc8GvCyiP8SM&usg=__0XnWdjmymwTDAPW2txZSqtnQ_8w=&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-3ae0nMDJAhULPz4KHVhbDO8Q9QEIITAA



almost throughout is not really the bass to cut through against two guitars, an organ and Tommy Aldridge's double bass drum attacks, you really only heard that bass if he played by himself (as in the intro to You Keep On Moving) and even then the sound was hardly assertive (though nice).



Even I have to admit that it sounds better with a P!!! (Man, that was hard to write.)



Oh, and with Doug Aldrich gone, Reb Beach (always a bit sidelined by DA) has now assumed the role of the more prominent lead guitarist though Joel Hoekstra (of Night Ranger) is anything but a shrinking violet, more a mix of John Sykes, a young Zakk Wylde and slightly neanderthalish/Ron Perlman in Beauty & the Beast features!





See what I mean?!!!