Bloomington, IL - Fan Reviews

Fan Review - By Curt Taft

So when I last saw Def Leppard, it was... Well... Frustrating.

My first show of the 2006 "Yeah!" tour was in Chicago, with just under 20,000 people in attendence. It was a great atmosphere. The band put on a great show. But I found that as they went into "Photograph," I had become bored. There were no surprises in the setlist, a lack of new material, nothing I hadn't seen before, and other than "Make Love Like A Man," nothing I didn't see on the 2005 tour. The best thing about seeing a band on a new tour is seeing some new material for the first time, but that didn't happen in Chicago.

Nor did it happen in St. Louis just two days later, as they played the exact same setlist as they did in Chicago. But I enjoyed the hell out of myself at this concert, despite the boring/safe setlist, since it was my first ever front row experience. Front row center at that, in a sold out crowd of over 21,000 people.

And as concerts usually go for me (particularly with Def Leppard and Aerosmith), the first few shows after mine showed Def Leppard mixing up the setlist, throwing in "Let It Go" the night after St. Louis and even bringing back "Hell Raiser" at the following show, knocking the number of new tracks back up to three.

It really isn't fair. I've been supporting this band my entire life. I sing every word to every song at every concert I go to. If anyone deserves more new and/or rare songs in the setlist, it's me! Not to say there aren't others out there that deserve it just as much as I do, but there actually are certain fans that go out to see stuff like "Hanging On The Telephone" rather than "Foolin'" for the billionth time.

So the tour continues. The band are now playing indoor shows since it's the colder time of the year. When more tour dates began to show up for October and November, I was wondering if I would wanna go if a date close to me popped up. I wasn't really expecting one, since when dates were added to the 2005 "Rock Of Ages" tour, there was a rumored Springfield date, which fell through, and then there were no more shows closer than Michigan for me. But of course, two shows were added to this tour that I could attend.

The first was Moline. It's a couple of hours up north of here. I saw them there on the X tour in 2003 and it was one of my favorite concerts. I was 3rd row, they played 23 songs, including 5 from the "High `n` Dry" album (which I had seen before on that tour, but it was awesome every time).

The second was one that I didn't even catch until a few hours later. I had skimmed over the list and saw Moline, with a Bloomington date right after it. I just assumed that it was Bloomington, Minnesota. Since when does Bloomington, Illinois get big concerts like this? Turns out they have a new arena that opened this year.

So after a few different plans, I just decided to attend the Bloomington show.

Just a quick note about Journey. They put on a decent show. I didn't enjoy them as much as I did in St. Louis, and they really disappointed me by dropping "Who's Crying Now." But oh well. That wasn't what I was there to see.

For this Def Leppard concert, I was more excited than I had been in Chicago, and this time I knew I wasn't going to suddenly become bored. There would be setlist changes, including one new song I've never seen them do before, other than on TV.

"We Will Rock You" came on and I was ready to go. As the explosion sound effect went off with the really cool flames, which I could feel the heat from in the 6th row, I was really hoping for "Hell Raiser." But we got the standard "Let's Get Rocked," which I still enjoyed.

Next up was an awesome performance of "Let It Go," a classic I haven't seen the boys do since the Rockford show in 2003. It's always been one of my favorite live songs and it was definitely a nice change from my first two shows on this tour.

The third spot seems to have been the rotating slot lately, so I was wondering what they would pull out for this stop. I heard they did "Promises" in Moline the night before, but I was hoping for something I didn't get in Chicago or St. Louis. Def Leppard pulled a fast one on me by playing "Foolin'" third, making me think something new and different would be in the setlist soon.

An always excellent version of "Bringin' On The Heartbreak" followed. Next up, being played in a new spot, was "Make Love Like A Man." While I would have rather had something I didn't get before, I still really enjoyed the performance of this song. Very high energy.

Following that, Phil hit the note on his guitar that would lead us in to "Hysteria."

Next up was the moment I had been waiting for. Joe introduced the "Yeah!" album, did the chanting bit, then introduced Viv, who started a fantastic performance of my favorite "Yeah!" song "20th Century Boy." It's too bad they've cut the end jam down a bit, but hey, at least it's in the setlist.

Sav got his intro, then did his great bass solo before leading the band into "Rock On," what has become a new live classic. While the 2005 version had great theatrical value (with just Joe singing, then the band sneaks on to blast in), the completely live version this year is way better.

"Rocket" followed, in it's usual excellent form.

The one-two-three punch of "Photograph," "Armageddon It," and "Animal" followed. I hate these shortened versions of the first two! But they were still great, and I really enjoyed "Animal" this time around.

Joe did his usual "stand up at the back" bit, got the crowd to make some noise, then introduced Rick before he started "Rock Of Ages," another one of many live classics. The pyro was cool during the end of this one as well.

After a quick encore break, it was "Love Bites" and "Pour Some Sugar On Me." Standards, but I suppose they're standards for a reason. Cool explosion at the end of "Sugar" as well.

So that was the show. It went by too fast. Hopefully Def Leppard headlines on the next tour and keeps this stage show. By playing "20th Century Boy" this time around, they've redeemed themselves for the setlist mistakes when I saw them back in July. But if they do another coheadlining tour with 95% standard setlists again, I think they'll have many angry die-hards.

Back

share this page:

---

---