Rio De Janeiro, Brazil - Fan Reviews

Fan Review - Live in Rio de Janeiro April 22nd 1997 By Gustavo Monsanto

Unbeliavable!!! We were going to see Def Leppard live that night. First of all, we were fans of the band since 1983 and were very let down when they cancelled their appearance on the first Rock in Rio Festival. That gig was supposed to be on January 11th 1985. They said they weren't coming a month before saying that they were in the middle of the recording the follow-up to "Pyromania", and a few days later, Rick Allen suffers the car crash which caused him to lose his arm, which is the reason that people think that Leppard was replaced by Whitesnake in the festival's line-up. By the way, on the way to the show, Rick Allen made sure that he finally could visit the place where the Rock in Rio Festival happened (which now is a deserted swamp isolated from the city of Rio de Janeiro).

Well, but let's talk about the gig. Metropolitan is a big club which has the capacity of receiving 15,000 a night, which surely didn't happen. The house had just 1,000 people and I was embarrassed by the poor attendance, because it made me sure that the Leps aren't coming back to Brazil.

22:00...It's showtime!!! When "Rock Rock Till you Drop" kicked in the show, people got crazy. The place wasn't crowded, but the people who were there were dedicated fans who knew all the lyrics by heart. It's going to be tough on me to put the songs in a correct order, so I'll say them straight; From "Slang", they played the title track (which was awesome-they brought a whole bunch of native girls on stage with them to dance, it was pretty cool and mostly, a beautiful sight...), "Deliver Me" and "Work it out", where Joe introduced Vivian Campbell. From "Retroactive", they played "Two Steps Behind" and "Action". From "Adrenalize", they played "Heaven is", "Make Love like a Man", "Have you ever needed someone so bad", the encore "Let's Get Rocked" and if I'm not wrong, "Stand Up (Kick Love into Motion)". From "Hysteria", 'Rocket", "Love Bites", "Pour some sugar on me", "Animal", "Armaggedom it", the title track and "Don't Shoot Shotgun". From "Pyromania", they played the concert opener, "Foolin'" and the concert closer "Rock of Ages", plus two awesome songs from "High and Dry", "Bringing on the Heartbreak" and "Switch 625". I can't assure you about "Don't shoot..." and "Stand up..." being on the set list, as I'm still in a state of shock from having seen the Leps so close (if I stretched my arm a little, I could touch Vivian.)

Now, my impressions on the band: Phil Collen surprised me a lot, he can play some wild stuff on those beautiful Jackson guitars and just now, from what I perceive, he's starting to spread his wings within the Def Leppard's concept. Rick Savage is also a good player with his awesome Hamer Chaparral 5-strings and seems to have recovered completely from his facial problem; Rick Allen is now sporting a fat belly but is worth the admission price for the human example that he sets when he sits on those drums and make the band happen. Joe Elliot didn't talk much to the crowd, but was nice though , made some jokes (He introduced "Rock of Ages" screaming "I am the Devil of Hell fire"...) and is still as good looking as the chicks want him to be.

Vivian Campbell deserves a paragraph all for himself... We all know that Campbell plays much, much, much more than what he shows on stage. At first (as he's one of my favorite guitar players), I was pissed at seeing him just strumming chords while Phil Collen amazed me. Up to the middle of the concert, he hadn't taken a single lead!!! But, after the tribute rendition of "Switch 625", I realized that there is only so much he can do within this band context and that he was being faithful to what Steve Clark used to play. The parts sound just like Steve!!! He had some brief but beautiful leads, such as the end solo of "Love Bites", which sent shivers down my spine.

Campbell was in a sorry state. I'm not sure if he had much to drink or what it was, but he was stumbling over the stage, playing kinda un-precisely (looked like he was in an auto-pilot), acting strange in general. But the funniest thing that happened that night had me and Viv as the main characters: As he was getting ready to begin playing "Two steps behind" unplugged sitting in a bench, I recalled the old Vivian banging heads with Dio, while riffing heavily. So, I looked at him (we made eye contact during the entire concert) and began yelling "Holy Diver" and he began laughing so hard that he almost fell!!! Problem is that all the people who were around me began screaming "Holy Diver" from the top of their lungs, and Viv politely looked at us, and looked to Joe Elliot to show everybody that he wasn't too keen on that kind of joke. But, still he spent at least five songs still laughing about the incident. I think that he probably realized that "Holy Diver" would be the most unlikely song in the world to be performed acoustically.

Talking about acoustic, Joe Elliot, while gearing up to play "Two Steps Behind", played a small portion of Nirvana's "Come as you are" and people screamed madly... It was one of those nights to remember, just songs that were parts of our lives, and people were genuinely happy. Everybody left Metropolitan with huge smiles and Leppard T-Shirts... I hope that Def Leppard comes back to Brazil to play in a Festival where there will be bigger crowds and more people will be able to appreciate their power.

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