As requested, here’s the only version on SHM-CD / cardboard sleeve LP-replica of WHITESNAKE 1980’s “Live… in the Heart of City“, featuring the complete Hammersmith 1980 show, plus a bonus disc with the band’s 1978 performance at the same venue.
Whether it’s Cheap Trick’s ‘At Budokan’, the first volume of ‘Kiss Alive!’ or Judas Priest’s ‘Unleashed In The East’, a live album often helps bring a rock band’s line of business into sharp focus. And Whitesnake are no exception to the career-filliping phenomenon of the in-concert recording. Because ‘Live… In The Heart Of The City’ gave David Coverdale’s original blues-rocking band a boost just when they needed it. A double-boost, in fact. Because ‘Live… In The Heart Of The City’ was so good, they named it twice.
Of the two versions, the first was recorded at London’s old Hammersmith Odeon (now the Apollo) on November 23, 1978, was an extended EP, just over half an hour long, specially recorded to introduce Whitesnake to the Japanese market. The second version was a proper all-singing, all-dancing, all- shagging long-player, again recorded at Hammersmith, this time on June 23 and 24, 1980.
Its release date in November ’80 was sandwiched between two Whitesnake studio albums: ‘Ready An’ Willing’
(June ’80) and ‘Come An’ Get It’ (April ’81). Confused? You won’t be, because here, both versions of ‘Live… In The Heart Of The City’ are available for your delectation, stacked back-to-back in this remastered release.
And they enable the listener to really get under the skin of the early Snake…
Released in November 1980 as a double-disc set, ”Live… In The Heart Of The City” was in effect two albums in one: the first disc recorded in June 1980; the second cut two years earlier. In both cases, the venue was the same: London’s Hammersmith Odeon.
But by 1980, the band had its definitive line-up: Coverdale on vocals, Bernie Marsden and Micky Moody on guitars, Jon Lord on keyboards, Neil Murray on bass and Ian Paice on drums…
This was a band on the cusp of becoming one of the biggest, most popular and, simply, best rock acts in the UK. For the next couple of years, they could do little wrong. And just how do you pick the highlights out of an album chock full of them?
There is a deeply soulful quality to the band’s version of ‘Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City’, the R&B song made famous by Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, its chorus taken up with gusto by the fans – ‘The Whitesnake Choir’, as Coverdale called them.
Equally, there is pure hard rock power in tracks like ‘Come On’, ‘Love Hunter’ and ‘Walking In The Shadow Of The Blues’. And one of the best is the hit single ‘Fool For Your Loving’, introduced by Cov in immortal faux-Cockney style: “’Ere’s a song for ya!”
The 1978 set is great, although the band are still very much in thrall to Deep Purple at this early stage. By 1980 however, Whitesnake live were a band in excelsis.
If ever a live album captured a performance it’s this one… you can almost smell it.
Highly Recommended
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Disc1: Live in the Heart of the City (23/24 June 1980)
01 – Come On
02 – Sweet Talker
03 – Walking In The Shadow Of The Blues
04 – Love Hunter
05 – Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City
06 – Fool For Your Loving
07 – Ain’t Gonna Cry No More
08 – Ready An’ Willing
09 – Take Me With You
Disc 2: Live at Hammersmith (23 November 1978)
01 – Come On
02 – Might Just Take Your Life
03 – Lie Down
04 – Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City
05 – Trouble
06 – Mistreated
David Coverdale – vocals
Micky Moody – guitar, backing vocals
Bernie Marsden – guitar, backing vocals
Neil Murray – bass
Ian Paice – drums on disc 1 recordings from 1980
Dave Dowle – drums on disc 2 recordings from 1978
Jon Lord – keyboards