Let's Get Rocked!

No need to adjust your blogscreens, your eyes are not deceiving you. That's me holding ticket number 3874 for the Whitesnake/Def Leppard concert on 3 Korrik 2008 at Qemal Stafa Stadium in beautiful downtown Tirana, Albania.

(As is clear from the above photo) Def Leppard pulled out all the favorites...Rock It, Let's Get Rocked, Photograph, Pyromania, Rock of Ages, Pour Some Sugar on Me, and Love Bites. I didn't realize what a Def Leppard fan I was, but much like the time I saw Hells Belles (all-female AC/DC tribute band), I knew all their songs. The band still had most of it's original members and best of all, the drummer for Def Leppard only has one arm. That's right, the drummer for Def Leppard only has one arm. No joke, the drummer for Def Leppard only has one arm.

When Whitesnake took the stage they went non-stop with a set of epic songs--complete with two-minute guitar solos and extended accapella sing-alongs choruses...every one of them. Songs ranged from Lay Down You Love, to Give Me All Your Love, to The Deeper the Love, to Hungry for Love, to Guilty of Love, to A Fool For Your Loving...I never realized how lyrically prolific and versatile Whitesnake was. They ended the set with their only radio hit, Here I Go Again, followed by two encores full of endless hair rock antics. All their guitar wankery aside, they rocked so hard that I bought a t-shirt--Whitesnake Across Europe Tour 2008: Good to be Bad.

The most amazing thing about the night was how every 20-something Albanian there didn't appear familiar with Def Leppard but could sing word for word of Whitesnake's full discography. Go ahead, ask an American born after 1980 who Whitesnake is and start tallying the blank stares. Tirana hadn't seen excitement like this since the 15 March 2008 explosion at the criminally-poorly managed munitions demilitarization site in Gerdec, Albania.