Zurich, 2 December 2011
I don’t think I ever saw Whitesnake in my youth, and tonight was a toss-up between going to shoot Rival Sons or Whitesnake. On the balance of that oversight in my teen years, and the probability of much better lighting, Whitesnake came out the winners. And I think it was absolutely the right choice!
David Coverdale still has amazing energy and a fantastic stage presence. He was as I imagine Robert Plant would have been if Led Zep were still out there and touring (yeah, I know everyone says that about Coverdale, but when you see him you have to believe it, and that comes from a huge LZ fan). The sound was great, the lights were great, sadly Coverdale’s voice lasted about half of the two hour set, but even so it was great show and I take my hat off to him – a true rock god…
Photography-wise, this was a great show too. We had a photo pit about 3 metres deep which is almost unheard of. There were 6 of us with plenty of space to stand back and move around. Brilliant. The lights were really good too, Coverdale having a white spot follow him around that made for good shots even when right at the front of the stage. This time I made good use of both bodies; the 1D4 with 16-35mm and 5D2 with 70-200mm. Both set on ISO2500, I moved up to f/3.5 or f/4.0 and kept shutters in the 1/200 range. An equal amount of shots on both bodies given the space we had to position ourselves.
