Five thousand people jammed into a dilapadated, old-time sports arena better suited to midget hockey than a major rock concert. My estimate was that maybe 2,000 of us actually got seats, the rest packed, standing, on the floor or in the upper concourse above the rows of seats. However, Scully and I managed to get in early enough that we were able to grab exactly the seats we wanted - three rows up, left-hand side of the stage. Despite the fact that I have always hated festival seating, I have to admit we couldn't have had better seats if they'd been assigned to us.
Opener Joan Jett and the Blackhearts were a serious throwback to the 80's bad hair and worse outfit syndrome. To her credit, she can still belt out the old rockers like 'I Hate Myself For Loving You' and 'I Love Rock & Roll', and she actually even had most of the audience barking like dogs at one point, much to my utter amazement. Unfortunately, she also seems to have some serious anger management problems. Add that to the fact that she seemed to play just about every song in the same key, and her band had every rockstar cliche in the book down pat, and it didn't add up to the most enjoyable 45 minutes.
Fifteen minutes later with a minimum of fanfare, Def Leppard hit the stage with 'Rock Rock'. Still using the wall of Marshall amps, (speaking of rock cliches...) in addition to the megawatts of power coming through the mains there was a lot of sound being generated. I imagine in a large arena it would have been most impressive. But like I said earlier, the Max Bell Arena isn't exactly the best venue in the world, it's likely one of the worst. Joe Elliott could have been singing in another language altogether or quoting scripture for all I could tell half the time. To put it simply, the Max Bell is like a huge, closed metal box. Bang on the side of it and it'll ring for an hour. The sound really, really sucks in there. Oh, sure it was great a few years ago for Clapton and Knopfler, but that was a mostly acoustic show. For an all-out rock'n'roll assault, it just doesn't cut it.
Still, what we could make out was, as always, prime Lep. Their set of nearly 2 1/2 hours was packed with favorite hits ranging from 'Paper Sun' down to 'Let It Go'. Those boys can still tear it up, despite what the critics may say. The local reviews complained about the 'posing' (which was largely stuff that Joe & Co. have done since the beginning). They said it was 'over-technologized' (that guy must have been flashing back to 1988's Hysteria concert). They also charged that Def Leppard was only there to sell copies of the new album, but we only heard four songs from it. Actually, I was a little disappointed in that, I wanted to hear more off Euphoria. The set really wasn't all that different from what we heard in July at Rockfest, it was just a bit longer, but what the hell. We were there to see and hear them, and that's exactly what we did.
What we're really looking at with a band like Def Leppard is the amazing ability to not only survive in an industry that is being rapidly purged of any real talent, but succeeding beautifully at it. At more than twenty years in the business, Def Leppard are true rock'n'roll veterans, and if you really think about it, there just aren't that many of them out there anymore. At least, not still doing the concert circuit. It always vaguely depresses me to find that another old favorite has packed it in or worse, ended up back where they started in the crummy bars. Perhaps it really is better to burn out than fade away, but at this point, Def Leppard aren't showing signs of doing either. Rock on, guys.
Sav.
Euphoria Set List
Def Leppard Page