London, England - Media Reviews
Def Leppard @ Wembley Arena By Ian Fortnam
Joe Elliott and his veteran rockers take their 'Euphoria' album on the road.
TIME WAS that the mighty Def Leppard's steely Sheffield riffola was bludgeoning at the forefront of heavy metal's much touted new wave. But 21 years down the rocky road, is a rock, as they say entirely out of the question?.
The distinctive 40-something faithful hanging around Wembley's hot dog stalls don't look concerned. T-Shirts are stretched to tourniquet-tightness across beer-swollen bellies, the mullet and the perm swing free on all sides, and white trainers poke ostentatiously from the bottom of implausibly snug stone-washed jeans. And, as the opening strains of 'Rock Rock ('Til You Drop')' coax these antediluvian rockers into the cacophonous auditorium, matronly hips swing with an abandon unseen since childbirth.
Def Leppard are bounding with an enthusiasm most usually resreved for gentlemen half their age before the most enormous Union flag this side of jingoism, and the 'mosh pit' reward their efforts with total stoicism. As the band lurch into a frenzied rendition of The Sweet's 'Action', the capacious crowd shuffle with the kind of resignation most commonly associated with a herd of sheep awaiting a damn good shearing. What these lapsed gumbies want are the hits, and the older the better. They want some sugar poured on them, they're in need of a little 'Hysteria' - and yes, they want to be aurally mauled by a bastard great, throbbing 'Animal'.
Eventually they're rewarded, but it has to be noted that the 'Animal' unleashed here this evening is not so much a ravenous, snarling beast as a comatose hamster feebly jerking its tiny paw as death draws ever closer. It's not that Def Leppard have totally divorced themselves from their arena-clogging power of old - Joe can still bellow like a rutting elk as Phil Collen widdles himself into an uber-glam knot - it's just that rekindling the old enthusiasm for such over-familiar material is a bloody chore. They've just delivered 'Euphoria', an album of which they're justly proud, and their nostalgia fan-base couldn't give a blithring sod about it. They simply look at their watches throughout the hammering eruptions of 'Demolition Man' and bide their time unitl the inevitable 'Let's Get Rocked'.
As the quintet file from the stage after an unsurprisingly lacklustre performance, you can't help but feel for them. Looking into a gaping maw of complacency is hardly the most inspiring sight for a band, no matter how long they've been treading the boards.
By Kerrang! (Issue 774 Oct 30 1999).
Hysteria! Def Leppard's loyal fans bite back! By Fans
It was with great surprise I read Ian Fortnam's review of the Leps at Wembley (K! 774). I went to the NEC and Sheffield Arena gigs and must have been to see a different band to Mr Fortnam. The atmosphere generated and response to the band were the best I've experienced, a far cry from anything I'd describe as lacklustre. I think the line "...after an unsurprisingly lacklustre performance" sums up the fact that he had already decided before the gig that they wouldn't be any good, and who rather childishly was more intent on taking the piss out of the audience - who I incidentally found to be of a very wide and well-balanced age bracket - A Gibbons, Stoke-On-Trent
The review you gave of Def Leppard's gig in (K! 774) was way f**king shit. I was there and I thought they put on a brilliant show - and despite being old, they can still f**king rock. Ian Fortnam has got a right cheek saying that "Joe can still bellow like a rutting elk". If you don't appreciate their music, then don't listen. Def Leppard rock - Emma Whitely, Scunthorpe
I'm raving f**king mad after reading your review of Def Leppard at Wembley (K! 744). To compare Def Leppard to a "comatose hamster" is a load of bollocks. The band gave 110 per cent during their performance, and given their age it was amazing. As for saying that "nobody gives a blithering sod" about 'Euphoria', that is a joke. It's the best album they've ever done. They've worked their arses off for years, sold millions and people still hate them. Def Leppard fans are out there, and we love them even if you don't - Mrs Lomas, Maidstone
By Kerrang! (Issue 776 Nov 13 1999).
Def Leppard @ Wembley Arena By Nick Griffiths
Poodle perms, tight black jeans, studded wrist bands and big white trainers are out in force tonight to gather and worship at the altar of the Leppard. But whatever you do don't take the piss out of mullets tonight, the venue's full of them. Within the cavenous confines of Wembley, support band Lukan appear out of their depth. They peddle an inoffensive blues rock that recalls bands such as Reef, Ben Harper and early '90's retro rockers Jellyfish. Songs come and go with 'Prove Me Wrong' standing out amongst some sloppy musicianship and non-existant stage personas. But it's sad to say that Lukan unfortunately fail to raise any emotions whatsoever.
Def Leppard, however have everyone going apeshit. They've never been the most fashionable of bands, especially for all those raised on a diet of downtuned guitars, Adidas trainers and make up. So, do Def Leppard have any relevance or a place in the rock hierachy of the 1990's? The answer is yes. With such a rich back catalogue of hits and a superb new album, Def Leppard, on tonight's showing can give the Korns and Deftones of the world a run for their money. With the release of 'Euphoria' and a bona fide hit single in the shape of 'Promises', Def Leppard bound on stage with an increased vigour and rip into 'Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop)' with Joe Elliott stalking the stage, working the crowd with consumate ease.
Mega hit 'Women' from multi million selling album Hysteria follows as 'When Love And Hate Collide' slows the tempo down and cue a flurry of lighters. 'Hysteria' and 'Animal', all sweeping backing vocals and hell for leather drums, compliment some majestic guitar work from Messrs Campbell and Collen as the Leps have the crowd eating out of their hands. It's a fantastic double whammy that sets up 'Paper Sun' from 'Euphoria'. It blends seamlessly with the older material which is a testament to the strength of their new album. But with the bulk of the set culled from from 'Hysteria', Leppard take us back to the halycon days of the mid '80s as they stamp on the accelerator and churn out masterpeices of rock like 'Love Bites' and 'Armageddon It'. 'Rocket' sees Wembley transformed into a sea of hands. But it's only an hors d'oeuve to the main course as 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' with its anthemic chorus and Elliott's vocals cutting through the crowd's feverish rendition, turns back the clock. Old favourite 'Rock Of Ages' closes things off for the main set and with Wembely baying for an encore, 'Let's Get Rocked' and 'Wasted' finish a masterclass in bubblegum rock. On tonight's showing Leppard seemed to have recovered from a slump (and a couple of crap albums) during the 90's and have rediscovered the magic touch that made them the global institution they once were.
By Rock Sound Dec 1999.
Def Leppard @ Wembley Arena By Dave Ling
TIMES are tough for Def Leppard. Traditionally, they have played two nights at the Arena, but on this occassion found a small section of the hall curtained off and their fiscally-minded manager making his way to the venue on the Underground!.
All joking aside, the quintet have triumphed in America with the new 'Euphoria' album, and tonight the Leps hit the stage running like they had something to prove in their homeland. The first three songs - 'Pyromania' era 'Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop), a cover of The Sweet's 'Action', and the new 'Demolition Man' - are performed with rip-snorting attitude, guitars cranked high and the volume at ear splitting level. Maybe they took it as a personal slight that Wembley wasn't quite as sold out as usual: a clearly perplexed Joe Elliott remarked afterwards, "We'd have been surprised if it had been - how are we suppossed to sell out gigs like this if our records don't get played on the radio?".
Putting behind them a merely above-average performance on their last 'Slang' tour, they play just about everything the audience want to hear, including 'Women', 'Make Love Like A Man' and 'Hysteria', punctuated by one of their finest ballads, 'When Love & Hate Collide'. And including the choicest of cuts from the mainly excellent 'Euphoria' album proves to be a wise move, the likes of 'Promises' and 'Paper Sun' sloting in perfectly alongside the more established 'Foolin', 'Animal', 'Slang' and 'Love Bites'.
The final run-in of 'Armageddon It', 'Photograph', 'Rocket', 'Pour Some Sugar On Me', and 'Rock Of Ages' leaves both audience and reviewer agog. At encore time, Elliott cheekily adapts the hookline of 'Let's Get Rocked', changing it to "i suppose a blowjob's out of the question", before Leppard rolled back the years to 1980 for 'Wasted' (from their debut album 'On Through The Night'), and 'Let It Go' from the following year's 'High 'N' Dry'. Absolutely the dog's bollocks. (9 out of 10).
By Metal Hammer Dec 1999.
Metal machismo Simon Briggs braves a Def Leppard concert at Wembley Arena By Simon Briggs
In this age of enlightenment, it's not often that you hear rock singers coming out with lyrics such as "I give you... women! (Women!) / Lots of pretty women (yeah!)." Not with a straight face, anyway. But Def Leppard wouldn't know the meaning of post-modern irony if it sneaked up and pinched their leather-clad backsides. Their story is that of four working-class Sheffield boys who made it big - very big - with one meticulously produced album. Hysteria was released in 1987 and has since sold 16 million around the world. It has also made Def Leppard the eighth British act to shift 10 million copies of a single record in the US, putting them with a list of rather more celebrated names that includes the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Elton John, George Michael, Eric Clapton and the Bee Gees.
There hasn't been anything too noteworthy since, but heavy-rock fan bases are famously loyal, and a large, vocal and eclectic crowd gathered at Wembley Arena. At first the sonic mix was soupy - a surprise, considering the pristine sound that Def Leppard create on their records. Their producer in the mid-Eighties, Robert "Mutt" Lange, was rumoured to record guitar solos one note at a time. Fortunately, the backroom boys sorted the problem out in time for the first of seven tracks from Hysteria, the aforementioned Women. They even worked some kind of magic on the microphones that turned backing vocals from a pair of grizzled guitarists into a heavenly chorus. In centre stage, lead singer Joe Elliott performed his patented impression of a dentist's drill, rasping wheezily in the upper registers, while Rick Allen, the drummer who lost his left arm 15 years ago in a car crash, pummelled a kit that included a full-scale Rank Cinema gong.
Most of the new material was unspeakable, but those seven vintage numbers transported everyone back to the heyday of the Leppard. Animal and Pour Some Sugar On Me were testosterone-fuelled slices of soft- metal hokum, greeted by a sea of raised right fists. There was an almost poignant moment on Armageddon It, when Elliott introduced a squealing guitar break with a gruff "C'mon Viv". On the recorded version it's "C'mon Steve", but original guitarist Steve Clark was found dead in 1991 after mixing alcohol with prescription painkillers. The ensuing solo, needless to say, was a perfect replica of the one on the album. Def Leppard's formula doesn't change for anything - political correctness, road accidents, even death. Touring until Saturday.
By The Telegraph 19 Oct 1999.
Rockers of ages By Brian Logan
It's a depressing sign of the times that what my young teenage self once sought and found in Def Leppard, today's kids are being told to seek in BreZe, four 11-year-old schoolgirls. You question the comparison? I think Def Leppard are positively nutritious for kids. Their simplistic, melodramatic heart beats to a teenage pulse; their music is of the fantastical, triumphal type that makes you feel like you're standing, legs dashingly akimbo, at the prow of a ship ploughing through the seas of insecurity. Love is nothing to panic about "Women! Women! Lots of pretty women!" and life is there to be conquered. You can even graffiti the band's name all over your jotter without being able to spell correctly.
Mercifully, they haven't changed much. The first band to sell 7m copies of successive albums, Pyromania and Hysteria, in the States, Def Leppard bestrode heavy metal just as that genre was entering ultimately terminal self-parody. In 20 years, they've tried once to shed their steely Sheffield power-rock sound in favour of musical eclecticism on the 1997 album Slang - and it duly flopped. At Wembley, following the release of return-to-form CD Euphoria, this Leppard has changed its spots back again.
The screaming unison of guitars, the euphoric choral yelling: there's nothing to show the last decade ever happened save for the lamentable absence of poodle-permed hairdos.
Testosterone metal looks more not less stupid with shorn locks: the mullets were integral to rock's flamboyant defiance of reality. But the leather'n'lace posturing is intact. Frontman Joe Elliott thinks his microphone stand is a guitar. Rick Savage and Vivian Campbell think their guitars impress the ladies. Weaselly Phil Collen strips his chest bare.
Elliott strikes a superhero pose atop the amps that jut into the crowd, the better to look indomitable. A Union Jack adorns the back wall, but Def Leppard are way too uncool for Cool Britannia. Even when metal is rehabilitated, as it surely will be in this laddish climate, Def Leppard may be passed over: they were always at the softer end of hardcore, where tunes were unfashionably tuneful, and chickens' heads were safe from singer's teeth.
But their distinctive brand of melodious bombast is as effective as ever in the live arena. Animal and Pour Some Sugar On Me remain beefy, infectiously catchy pop songs, and are foregrounded in a set designed to give the crowd precisely what they want. Elliott, notwithstanding his paunch, can leap as high as ever to emphasise a chord change. "Rock of ages, rock of ages", he sings, "still rollin', rock'n'rollin", and it's heartening to see that, impervious to the slings and arrows of fashion, 80s-era British metal endures, in all its ridiculous, infantile, epic wonder.
Touring to Brighton, Bournemouth, Glasgow, Sheffield, Belfast and Dublin.
By The Guardian 1999.
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