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The tour that fell apart like Jenga
Reb Beach gave several interviews over the last few months, in which he reminisces about his days in Whitesnake and their ill-fated last tour.
In February 2026 he spoke to Blabbermouth:
It was the worst ending that it could have been. It couldn’t have been any worse than it was. It’s just how the cookie crumbled. We had a new management, and we had a terrible soundman, then everyone got sick, and it fell apart like Jenga, like all over the table: ‘Okay, guys, that’s it. We sucked. Goodbye.
The whole band’s sound was bad. We had shitty hotels. It was a terrible tour; that last tour. Now that’s going to be the fucking headline! [Laughs] I got sick early on during the tour. I was the music director of that tour, and I wasn’t happy with what was going on with some of the sound issues. It had nothing to do with David’s voice or anything. We weren’t the team we used to be. We had some great things on that tour, like Tanya [O’Callaghan], the bass player. She was incredible. We all loved her, like, if you even looked at her wrong, all of us would kill you. We’d gang up on you. She was our sister. That was a beautiful breath of fresh air. It’s really cool that they got to play with Steve Vai. I missed out on that one. That was super-cool. Other than that, we had a whole tour scheduled with SCORPIONS. David couldn’t do it. He called me and said, ‘Rebel. I’m exhausted.’ He was having some issues at the time, so he told me to leave my equipment at his house in case we record something. That was three years ago. They called and said, ‘We’ve got your equipment. We’re sending it back.’ [Laughs] That’s it. WHITESNAKE is definitely done.
In a more recent interview with TotalRock, he looks back at his serpentine tenure rather fondly:
I was so fortunate to be in the band longer than anybody else, 22 years or something. And like Kip Winger says: “I never got a chance to play arenas, and being in a nice tour bus and flying on a private jet and all that.” And I did it for 20 years. So I feel really blessed. And so thankful to David for keeping me on for so long.
Thanks to Uwe for the heads-up, and to Ultimate Guitar for the quotes.
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