WHITESNAKE – Made In Japan – CD review

WHITESNAKE
Made In Japan
Frontiers 2013

Are you ready! Here’s a song for ya! Insert another rock and roll cliche! Cheekily name your live album “Made In Japan”! Yes it’s time for another live release from Sir David de Coverdale and his Whitesnake!

Now to an extent my critical faculties tend to go out the window a bit when it comes to Whitesnake, but when something is shit I’m happy to say so. And so it was with “Live At Donington 1990”. But that’s not the case this time around on a performance originally recorded for Japanes television when Whitesnake were co-headlining the Loud Park festival on October 15th 2011 at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan.

Naturally, the band are claiming that this has been released due to “unprecedented requests for this performance to be made available for a general release”, and has nothing to do with a forthcoming UK jaunt with Journey. As it will be with the two additional live albums that are, apparently, pending. Seems that 2012 was largely spent editing and mixing this show in stunning HD as a multi format DVD-CD in 5.1 and stereo release, and not tweaking Sir Davids vocals. No, not at all.

To be fair, he seems to have accepted that the air raid years are behind him, and is tackling most of the songs in a lower register, which is, officially, a good thing. And, fair play, for performing four songs from the “Forevermore” album, rather than peddling the usual greatest hits set. However, the eighties still rears its ugly head with tracks 7 and 9, namely The Guitar Solo and The Drum Solo. That’s thirteen minutes where he could have squeezed in a couple of classics.

But, that aside, this is a good live album. And, ‘Forevermore’, the track, is simply stunning, well worth the price of admission alone. The other new tracks fare well, and are what makes this worth hearing. Although there is still room for ‘Give Me All Your Love Tonight’, ‘Love Ain’t No Stranger’, ‘Is This Love’ ‘Fool For Your Loving’, ‘Here I Go Again’ and ‘Still Of The Night’, to keep the hit seekers happy.

I’m not a big fan of the mix on the bass and drums which sometimes become a bit of a muddy mess, and the anti-shredders will still find plenty to moan about. However, I’m more than happy to add this to my bulging Whitesnake, um, collection. Over on the second disc, you get sound check versions of ‘Love Will Set You Free’, ‘Lay Down Your Love’, ‘Evil Ways’ and ‘Steal Your Heart Away’, as well as acoustic versions of ‘Fare Thee Well’, ‘One Of These Days’, ‘Good To Be Bad’ and ‘Tell Me How’. It’s a nice add on, especially as a fair number of them aren’t performed on the main set.

I’ve only been sent the audio to review, so can’t comment on the video, although the track listing is the same plus fan videos for ‘Forevermore’ and ‘Steal Your Heart Away’.

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