M3 - Classic Whitesnake:
Fake or Snake?
by Rasmus Heide

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. But what's the point, when old dogs like these perform all the old tricks with such gusto and a graceful air of surplus energy that there almost need not be any new tricks? Almost.

Guitarists Bernie Marsden and Micky Moody and bassist Neil Murray - all of whom original members of British blues-rock giants Whitesnake - are back with a new combo playing Whitesnake songs. Earlier they were called The Company Of Snakes (because their singer was previously with Bad Company), now they're called M3, with a large subheader of Classic Whitesnake, coz this is what it's all about.

Throughout a set sprinkled with Whitesnake classics from the late 70s and early 80s, these old blues hounds rarely break into a sweat, even during the most intense of climaxes towards the end of the show. More about this later.

Peddling a set of groovy Whitesnake classics, messers Marsden, Moody and Murray have teamed up with singer Tony Martin, ex-Black Sabbath, keyboard player Mark Stanway (of Magnum and Phil Lynott's Grand Slam fame), and drummer Jimmy Copley, previously with Paul Rodgers. Their amassed past experiences and musical talent ensure an evening of never less than highly competent rock'n'roll.

Where The Company Of Snakes had a tendency to trip and stumble over a weak foundation and a none too inspiring list of ever changing singers, M3 are as close to genuine Whitesnake 2003 as you're gonna get without the old frontman David Coverdale himself. But that's a different story. One which seems to have bugged Bernie's ambitious career aspirations since the day the two of them parted ways.

Apart from the old hits, the set includes a few unusual choices, all of which work well to keep the hardcore fans peeled. Frankly it's heart warming to finally hear some of these songs performed live, and they have picked some of the very best from a vast number of hitherto unplayed classics.

Hit An' Run and Child Of Babylon off the Come An' Get It album (1981) and Young Blood from Saints And Sinners (1983) illustrate the point. But at the end of a very enjoyable evening you ask yourself whether you'd come back for seconds if the concept doesn't evolve.

While M3 are playing their old songs to clubs in the UK and on the European continent, David Coverdale himself is touring the stadiums of America with a souped up set of MTV hits perfunctorily performed by an assortment of hired guns from the ranks of (hair-)styled California celebrity rockers. At the same time he's accusing his old pals of unrightful use of the name Whitesnake.

- They are in fact using the Whitesnake name, which is my name, and they are doing this solely to sell tickets, David Coverdale insists in the chat room on his personal website.

- I started the band and I put the players together. I also registered the name Whitesnake, so I do in fact own it. 'We' didn't start the band together as a 'band'. The band was originally put together by me to promote my solo career after Deep Purple, Coverdale strikes back. While he has absolutely no problem with M3 using the name Whitesnake in reference to their past work, he says that misrepresenting themselves as the current Whitesnake is unnaceptable to him.

The name issue became particularly muddled when Coverdale himself decided to reactivate the name Whitesnake at the beginning of 2003. After several years of hard work to get a career going under his own name - during which he wasted no opportunity disowning his serptentine past - he suddenly performed a perfect u-turn and announced the Snake was coming out of hibernation.

The Company Of Snakes had at the same time come to an end. A show in Ålborg, Denmark with less than 40 paying customers became their last in November 2002. Marsden focused on his solo career of original blues songs and released a double album titled Big Boy Blues. If he had been secretly harbouring hopes for a call from Coverdale suggesting they get back together again, he was sorely disappointed. Coverdale's newfound love for the Snake turned out to focus on the post-Marsden-Moody-Murray years, so the three of them decided to get their own version of the past on the road, hence M3.

This is of course the main concern for M3. They have an illustrious past, peppered with classic rock songs. But what does it all mean today? Marsden himself reckons The Company Of Snakes' last studio album of original material, Burst The Bubble, will become a classic album in the next five years. Possibly so, but if he really believes this, why doesn't he play these songs to the crowds that flock to feel the bite of the old Snake? He is right now backed by the best band he has had in ages, and the audiences are growing, yet the intention is only to relive days gone by.

- We have to play what the people want to hear, he says. Yet at the same time he admits that he could take any song off the Once Bitten studio album (recorded before Burst The Bubble) and put it into tonight's set and no one would notice the difference. (Yes, that album was a would-be Whitesnake goodie too.)

A four-show Scandinavian stint is coming to an end in Århus, Denmark. The band appears comfortable within itself, jamming on a loose'n'funky blues during soundcheck. Tony Martin doesn't sing for fear of wrecking his voice before the show, but the band run through Lonely Days, Lonely Nights before they disappear in search of dinner.

Throughout the show the two guitarists shine and excel in their trademark guitar harmonies. Some are as familiar and trusted as the songs themselves, others are new features, added to spice it all up. It all works wonders as they sonically weave in and out among each other and the crowd laps it up. The curiously groomed Tony Martin - looking more like a technometal frontman than a bluesrock singer - may not be able to reach the soaring vocal heights David Coverdale put down on the original recordings of these songs, but to his credit he doesn't attempt them either. Coverdale himself would do well to learn that lesson.

Bassist Neil Murray occasionally looks away in what seems like shy embarrassment when the others get too animated at the front of the stage, but his playing never veers from its sturdy solid-as-a-rock stronghold on the groove. The man is a master. He is currently spending most of his time playing backing to Queen's We Will Rock You musical in London's West End where he complains of actually playing too much. "It ruins my fingers. Going on the road with M3 is like a holiday," he muses.

For all of M3's insistence that they play their songs their way, it's a tad ironic that they would choose to play two of Whitesnake's biggest hits, Crying In The Rain and Here I Go Again, in the arrangement David Coverdale put together for the re-recorded versions he used to break the US charts. Perhaps it's M3's way of acknowledging that not everything Coverdale went on to do without them was bad. It's certainly effective.

Towards the end we're treated to a rousing Fool For Your Loving, where drummer Jimmy Copley again demonstrates his superior prowess over his predecessors as he locks into the groove with Murray and includes some of original drummer Ian Paice's licks and fills. Nice one, Copley. That Copley shall also provide the show's low point really isn't his fault.

Final encore Take Me With You has the audience entranced as its infectuous and reckless furore whips around the room. It's a fantastic rendition. After living with the live album (Live In The Heart Of The City) for 20 years I'm stunned to hear it live onstage. We're split seconds before the anticipated ultimate climax, when the band suddenly stops to let Copley break into a drum solo. It's not a long solo and it's well played. But it completely ruins the momentum and throws everyone into an unimaginably disappointing musical coitus interruptus. Why, when we were so close to perfection?

 

Train, Århus, Denmark - Nov. 17, 2003

Walking In The Shadow Of The Blues
Don't Break My Heart Again
Trouble (incl. Murray's solo)
Hit An' Run
Lonely Days, Lonely Nights
Ready An' Willing
Child Of Babylon
Moody's slide solo
Slow An' Easy
Youngblood
Crying In The Rain (1987 version)
Marsden's 12-string solo
Ain't Gonna Cry No More
Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City
Fool For Your Loving
Here I go Again (1987 single version)
Take Me With You (incl. drum solo)

Photos: © Rasmus Heide, click to enlarge


Bernie Marsden after the show


Bernie Marsden & Neil Murray

Singer Tony Martin

Keyboardplayer Mark Stanway

Signing an M3 poster