What do you call four Irish men on the Newcastle City Hall stage at 7:50pm? THE ANSWER!! A band that have recently praised, not only by HardRockHouse, but by Classic Rock magazine as  having recorded the debut of the decade and after tonight’s performance it’s hard to disagree.

Opening with 'Follow Me'  the first thing you notice is singer Cormac Neeson's excellent vocals, equal parts Robert Plant and a young David Coverdale whilst the second thing is the bands obvious seventies influences, in particular to a  certain band named after a large metal airship. The band received an excellent reception form the surprisingly full City Hall, as they  powered through a 40 minute set that covered most of their debut album 'Rise'.  No Questions Asked,   Be What You Want and my particular favourite 'Keep Believing' which was simply stunning live and gave guitarist Paul Mahon a chance to shine, throwing all of his best shapes. Mahon may only be a little lad, in fact his Les Paul is his nearly as big as him, but he handles it with style and thought out the set he proved he was the equal of the two vastly more experienced and older American guitarist in Whitesnake. 

Next up was an excellent version of album opener 'Under The Sky with a thunderous bass line and is one of the more modern sounding tracks played tonight. They followed this up with Preachin' which when I heard the album I thought sounded familiar and is in fact an old 30’s blues number that has been re-worked and shows that the band have done their home work and have not just plagiarized the 70’s rock albums but have gone back listened to the bands that inspired the bands that inspired them. An excellent opening set from a very promising new band.

 After a short interval the lights dimmed and tonight’s head liner, Whitesnake hit the stage at 9:00pm precisely. Opening, just like on their recent 'Live... In The Still Of The Night' DVD with Burn with a bit of Stormbringer thrown in for good measure, the band hit there stride with  the lyrical excellence and innuendo of 'Slide It In' and then Coverdale started one of his sing alongs that have always been a feature of every Whitesnake show I’ve ever been to. 'Love Ain't No Stranger' was stunning, I’ve always loved this track and Timothy Drury's keyboard work was spot on and complimented perfectly the twin guitar attack . 

The familiar cry of "Here’s a song for Ya', heralded the UK debut of the track 'Ready To Rock',  a great up-tempo number which bodes well for the new material that is apparently going to feature on the band's forthcoming Live album, mind you following this up with the classics 'Is This Love', a song everybody knows was a pretty smart move. After the cry are you ready and willing, Whitesnake eventually  launched into said track once the audience had shorted yes loud enough and up to this point their set had been dynamic and full of energy. Unfortunately the momentum was lost somewhat with the extended musical work out of 'Blues For Mylene'  and 'Snakedance'  which were basically solo spots for band giving Coverdale a chance to rest his voice. Now I’ve spent 20+ years going to gigs and I’ve seen every major guitarist and few lesser knower but no less talented six stringers playing solo’s and it has come to the point were if I want to see an instrumental I’ll go to a prog show or a Joe Satriani show. When I go to see Whitesnake I want to hear songs not musical masturbation, mind you a guitarist friend of mine thoroughly enjoyed the workout so it really is just a matter of personal taste. To add insult to injury the next track, 'Crying In The Rain', featured Tommy Aldridge’s drum solo. Luckily if there is one song guaranteed to bring the best out of a crowd it is 'Ain't No Love In The heart of The City' and the City Hall chapter of the Whitesnake choir was in full voice, perhaps spurred ion by the fact that in days of yore Coverdale used to consider Newcastle his home town gig.  

'Gimme All Your Love' brought a big smile to this reviewers face and gave Reb Beach his chance in the spotlight, it looks like the solo’s have been divided in such away that Beach handles the technical stuff from the later albums whilst Aldrich covers the bluesy guitar lines. Bringing the main set to a close in fine style with 'Here I Go Again' Whitesnake returned for the obligatory encores, this time around serving up 'take me With You' and of course what else but 'Still of The Night' after which the band departed leaving Coverdale to say goodnight in his own sweet way with an acapella version of 'Soldier Of Fortune'  and with the familiar strains of 'We Wish You Well' drifting through the PA  it signaled the end of another Whitesnake show.

In conclusion The Answer were awesome a band poised, and deserving, of going on to bigger and better things. Whitesnake, in hindsight, were as professional as ever, This line up are without doubt excellent musicians and play the material as well as any of the previous musicians that have graced the Whitesnake family in recent times. However, and perhaps as a result of needing to protect Coverdale's voice, I could have done without the continual over extending of songs and the solo spots.  From a personal point of view I would have much rather seen and heard a 'Don’t Break My Heart Again', a 'Fool For Your Lovin' or a 'Lovehunter' than have had to endure some more widdly widdly bits, as technically excellent as they may have been.  In saying that the 'Ready To Rock' shows that there's life in the old Troosersnake yet and hopefully more new material will come sooner rather than later.

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