Portland, OR - Media Reviews

Def Leppard @ Memorial Coliseum By Statesman Journal

The Portland show was pumped with passion, familiar riffs, pensive lyrics, and it featured a splendid display of green lasers that pulsated in sync with the thundering music.

In many ways, the Portland show resembled a TV concert video: elaborate square stage bedecked in fluorescent colors.

Dry-ice fog, and gypsy-like costumes, replete with chains and earrings.

And, of course, there was plenty of stage hamming.

Def Leppard was having a good time. But for a band that has been riding a successful comeback via the radio airwaves with several top 40 singles, Def Leppard's Tuesday night performance could have been better.

Lead singer Joe Elliott too often pushed his strained voice - his style of singing is nothing more than screaming - into feigned vocal madness.

Elliott sounds better on studio-mixed albums than he does in concert.

And he pandered to a lot to the teen-age audience, too much in fact.

A longer encore would have been nice, 16 songs barely worth the $19.50 ticket price.

The band's not-so-good rendition of 'Rock And Roll' by Led Zeppelin didn't help matters either.

But the show wasn't a total flop, and thanks go to the energetic Portland crowd for that.

By Statesman Journal 1988.

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