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Wednesday, 16th August 2006
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Salt Lake City, UT - Media Reviews

Def Leppard remains a rock 'n' roll force By Brandon Griggs

It felt like the '80s again Wednesday night at the Usana Amphitheatre, where Journey and Def Leppard evoked that big-hair and spandex era with almost three hours of bombastic ballads and deafening power chords.

But it's a fair guess that when Def Leppard played their monster hit "Photograph" back in 1983, fans weren't holding up cell-phone cameras to snap pictures of the band.

Nearly two decades after their commercial peak, Def Leppard still pack an impressive energy for a bunch of blokes in their forties. The band sounded focused and well rehearsed while managing to make their choreographed 80-minute set feel loose and playful.

Although Def Leppard just released "Yeah!," a new album of covers of '70s power pop, they played only two songs from it: Badfinger's "No Matter What" and a theatrical version of David Essex's "Rock On." Instead, the band devoted the majority of its show to 1983's "Pyromania" and 1987's "Hysteria," two massively popular albums from its MTV heyday.

Singer Joe Elliott and bassist Rick Savage dashed about the stage with abandon while guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell traded fiery solos andone-armed drummer Rick Allen maintained a furious groove. Elliott chatted little between songs, leaving more time for the band to crank out one radio hit after another: "Foolin'," "Rocket" and a rousing "Rock of Ages" that had the sold-out crowd pumping its fists.

By the encores, everyone knew what was coming: power ballad "Love Bites" and the inescapable stomp-along, "Pour Some Sugar On Me." Journey also filled its set with faithful renditions of its biggest hits, but something was missing. Because famous ex-frontman Steve Perry is long gone, the lead-vocal duties were split between newcomer Jeff Scott Soto on rockers like "Don't Stop Believin'" and drummer Deen Castronovo, who handled ballads like "Open Arms" and "Faithfully." While both singers did credible impressions of Perry's distinctive tenor, Soto's incessant mugging soon grew tiresome. Longtime guitarist Neal Schon redeemed some songs with soaring solos (and opened the evening with a Hendrix-like solo rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner").

But other tunes were overwhelmed by excessive arrangements and a sense that the band - what's left of it - is clinging to fading glories that are a quarter-century old. In another five years, we may see Journey at the state fair.

By Salt Lake Tribune 2006.


Def Leppard off to a slow start By Pat Reavy

Admit it, you've turned up the radio and sung along with "Pour Some Sugar On Me" or slow-danced at prom or homecoming to "Open Arms."

Wednesday night at USANA Amphitheater, a near sellout crowd relived some of those memories with a double-bill of two of the biggest acts of the '80s.

Def Leppard headlined with its typical high-energy, large bi-level stage production. Unfortunately singer Joe Elliot's voice stumbled out of the starting blocks with un-Leppard-like awful rendition of "Let's Get Rocked."

In fact, it took about four songs for his voice to really get warmed up, and those stratospheric screeching high notes just aren't happening anymore.

But the band made up for its slow start with a strong finish, focusing primarily on the "big-three" hits from Pyromania - "Foolin," "Photograph" and "Rock of Ages" - and the blockbuster "Hysteria."

"Rocket," "Armageddon It," "Animal," "Love Bites" and "Pour Some Sugar On Me" kept the crowd on its feet and blended nicely with "No Matter What" and "Rock On" from Def Leppard's latest CD of all-covers.

By Desert Morning News 2006.

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