Face Of Cheam

An arena sized venue for two bands whose last tours saw them play the half sized capacity Hammersmith Odeon. It makes sense for them to co-headline, and surprisingly the cost was not much more than it was to see either band on their own on the last tours.
Whitesnake were first up and mixed their set with some classics, Is This Love, Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City and Here I Go Again, with some new songs from their album Good To Be Bad. The new stuff did not sound out of place. However, David Coverdale’s voice was not as melodic as it could have been resorting to shouting the high notes rather than stretching up as he used to. His on stage banter was with many a effing curse word and for a man who is nearly 60 he should not be making out with his mike stand like he did. Ending with a long version of Still Of The Night, this was still an entertaining rock performance though.
Def Leppard though were superb. Their music is probably built for arenas and although I was a fair way back, I found this show more enjoyable than when I was near the front at Hammersmith a couple of years ago. They kept their new stuff to the minimum, though Nine Lives and Bad Actress did sound pretty decent, and concentrated with a greatest hits set, together with a cover of David Essex’s Rock On. Animal was surprisingly thrown in third song and there was an acoustic break of Two Steps Behind and Bringing On The Heartbreak which had an electric finale to it. The final song of Let’s Get Rocked had me leaving the venue on a high, not remembering when I last enjoyed a show at an Arena that much.