On August 18, singer David Coverdale, guitarist Steve Vai, bassist Rudy Sarzo and drummer Tommy Aldridge reunited — virtually — for the first time since they finished WHITESNAKE’s “Slip Of The Tongue” world tour for a question-and-answer session prior to a live stream of the band’s legendary “Live At Donington” concert. Much like on the Slip of the Tongue album, guitarist Adrian Vandenberg was unable to participate. Nonetheless, the Zoom reunion was a really fun watch. David Coverdale was his ever-charming with Aldridge, Vai, and Sarzo all smiles and laughing while reminiscing about Whitesnake’s monumental performance headlining 1990’s Monsters of Rock (now known as Download Festival) festival at Castle Donington. Joined by Aerosmih, Poison, The Quireboys, and Thunder, Whitesnake had some tough acts to follow which lead to the band stepping up their game bigger than they ever had.
After the release of this “reunion,” many fans were speculating a potential reunion of this line-up in the future. While Slip of the Tongue is not a favorite of mine, there was a certain magic that was captured with this line-up. It comes through on the performances on the album even if most of the songs were just silly, tongue in cheek cock rock. On this tour Whitesnake fired on all cylinders. The energy from the live shows was over the top and it resonated with the audiences. When I saw this tour in Atlanta, it was one of my favorite concerts. Looking back on it after all these years, I would’ve loved to have seen less Slip of the Tongue songs in the set but hey, you can’t always get what you want.
In those years, there wasn’t the compact audio/visual technology that we have now so most bands didn’t have quality video of their performances. Whitesnake’s Live at Donington was captured via the live video feed from the festival that day. The footage over the years degraded but nonetheless is a great watch and a great representation of an awesome performance with this era of Whitesnake at their prime. Check out the show below.
About The Author
