Def Leppard Reading, England 24th August 1980 Setlist On Through The Night Tour

home > tour history > 1980 > Reading, England

Sunday, 24th August 1980

Prev | Next

Location / Reading, England
Venue / Little John's Farm @ Richfield Avenue
Event / Reading Festival / Reading Rock '80

The first show by the band in this city.

The first time at this venue and festival.

The venue is located in Richfield Avenue on the grounds of Little John's Farm and next to the River Thames.

The festival site is just over 1 mile to the North West of the city centre of Reading which is 45 miles West of London.

The festival was first held as the National Jazz Festival in 1961.

The venue in Richfield Avenue was first used in 1971.

This event was billed as 'Reading Rock '80 - 20th National Rock Festival' and held over three days from 22nd to 24th August.

The first appearance by the band at a major UK festival.

At the time this festival was more of a genre rock festival and not widely reported on outside of the few rock magazines at the time.

A listen to the audience recording tells you they got a decent response and even got the crowd singing along.

The stories of being bottled off are exaggerated (see Joe's comments via the Lep History link).

Also forgotten is that this was a festival crowd and the majority of fans were non-Lep and there to see Whitesnake/Slade.

The show should be more notable for the fact that they play a very rare song called 'Long Way From Home' never recorded on record or released officially.

They also played 'Medicine Man' which became 'Rock! Rock!' and the pre High 'N' Dry version of 'Lady Strange'.

'Me and My Wine' also featured as an (at the time) unreleased song - later released as a b-side to 'BOTH' and remixed for the 1984 'High 'n' Dry' re-release.

'Satellite/WTWCTD/MM/Overture/Lady Strange' and 'Rocks Off' were recorded by the BBC In Concert Show broadcast a week later (as indicated on the setlist).

The full show was also recorded in full by an audience member and is of decent quality.

A section of 'When The Walls Came Tumbling Down' was played during 'Satellite' as a medley. During "Satellite" the band went into "When The Walls..." after 1:45 from the heavy section 'all the women were captured and chained...' before going back into Satellite after 4mins.

This is split on the radio recording so 'WTWCTD' has the end of 'Satellite'.

So the audience recording shows 13 tracks and not 14.

The BBC radio recordings were eventually released by the band on the 2019 'The Early Years '79-'81' box set.

Read more about this show in the Lep History section including band quotes and rare photos.