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Monday, 16th July 2007
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Toronto, ON - Media Reviews

Def Leppard still roars By Jason MacNeil

Roughly 20 years after their career hit the stratosphere with the album Hysteria, British rock band Def Leppard are still on the road, trying to recreate 1987 all over again. And while they're getting a bit long in the tooth, the quintet can still take fans back to a certain place in time as they did last night at Toronto's Molson Amphitheatre.

The British band, who have seen their star power diminish in recent years, gave the fans what they wanted with a roughly 90-minute set of early favourites that relied on guitar-driven solos by Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell.

With a wide video screen above them that at times featured three different camera angles, Def Leppard opened with Rocket as images of rockets and satellites provided the almost obligatory eye candy. Lead singer Joe Elliott glad-handed fans in the front of a walkway extending out from the main stage while fans got into the show early.

VOICE WEARING THIN - From there, the group tore into Animal, the first of the several crowd-pleasers but also the first to show that time is starting to wear on Elliott's vocals.

While most of the songs were supported by strong backing vocals, Elliott isn't as powerful as his early days. However, he still managed to make the most of things with Excitable. Def Leppard knows that they were at their height in the '80s and most of the night kept going back to 1981's High 'N' Dry, 1983's Pyromania and especially mining tunes from 1987's Hysteria album. The first true highlight was following the opening guitar notes of Foolin', a moody track that has a big beefy chorus.

"Thank you very much! Merci beaucoup!" Elliott said, choosing to ignore some of the boos emanating from the crowd for the second salutation. The boos turned to cheers, shrieks and fist pumps for the plodding rocker Mirror, Mirror (Look Into My Eyes) and the ensuing Another Hit and Run.

Things took a different turn when the electric guitars were swapped for acoustic ones for a brief two-song quasi-unplugged set that featured all but drummer Rick Allen near the lip of the catwalk stage. "From back there we can see you, from out here we can hear you," Elliott said prior to the campfire ballad Two Steps Behind and a decent rendition of Bringin' On the Heartbreak.

BAND TOOK OVER - Elliott took the occasional rest as the band fleshed out some tunes, with the instrumental Switch 625 coming across quite nicely. Both barechested, Campbell and Collen doled out one strong riff after another while the one-armed Allen was equally up to the challenge.

If there was a lowlight to the evening though, it was perhaps during another filler moment when bassist Rick Savage took it upon himself to dole out a bass solo. Only a few bass players can get away with such a feat, and Savage is not one of them. Nonetheless, Def Leppard rounded out the evening with Elliott sounding much better for the mid-tempo pop track Hysteria. It was also a decent primer for the homestretch of hits that had the crowd, filling nearly two-thirds of the seats and a large portion of the lawn, drowning out the band during Armageddon It, Photograph and perhaps their biggest hit, Pour Some Sugar on Me.

The opening act primarily for this current North American run has been Styx. But Kim Mitchell was selected on this night to warm up the crowd. Mitchell, whose new album Ain't Life Amazing hits stores today, relied on hits such as I Am a Wild Party, Patio Lanterns and Go For a Soda.

By The Toronto Sun 2007.


Def Leppard, Kim Mitchell By Sheena Lyonnais

They may not be from Toronto, they may not be indie and they may not be young, but Def Leppard rocked the Molson Amphitheatre this week like it was going out of style and thus they warrant one hell of a review.

Def Leppard is the epitome of rock star. Now middle-aged, the five members turned the amphitheatre from a venue into an experience. They sang exactly how you would imagine 80s rock stars to sing. Although Joe Elliot began noticeably losing his voice towards the end, it was still so filled with passion and excitement it was perfect none the less. For a band that is better known for their one-armed drummer than their career success, the show was almost entirely sold out, an impressive feat considering they were at their prime before I was even born and the venue holds approximately 16,000 people.

Its bands like this who make me wonder where on earth the music industry would be had 80s rock not existed. A recent article in Spin magazine explored the notion of what it means to be a rock star and how "rock stars" don't actually exist today. You used to be able to distinguish between who was a in a band and who was a regular dude - rock stars had crazy hair, wore too tight pants, talked a lot of shit and caused havoc. Most bands today look pretty well, normal. Twenty years later Def Leppard still look like rock stars.

Perhaps that is part of the novelty, and similarly possibly why Def Leppard can continue to sell out stadium after stadium even though they have managed to avoid becoming modern. Since their inception, Def Leppard has released 14 compilations. Most recently was last year's Yeah, a collection of cover songs. Their last real album was 2002's X, which sounded more like a rendition of the Backstreet Boys than heavy metal, which is subsequently why you have probably never heard of it.

And exactly why they did not play a single song off that release. Instead, Def leppard performed the songs that made them big 20-something years ago. Classics such as "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Photograph" were saved for last, but the entire set was laced with older songs clearly geared towards the original fans. The Rolling Stones do this too. AC/DC follows suit. Kim Mitchell rocked those Patio Lanterns. 80s bands play 80s songs because those are the songs the old fans have built their memories around. Bands like this are still popular today because in a sense they're riding the coattails of their own past success and enlightening those who helped create it by doing just so. Attending a Def Leppard concert is like stumbling across a sixth grade field trip to the zoo. Everyone is ecstatic over the zebras even though they've all seen the zebras before and even though the zebras are still horse-like and striped. Except now the sixth graders are actually in their 40s, many of them still have mullets and most of them could drink you under the table.

Yet the beauty of these concerts is how the age factor vanishes into oblivion. Original fans are in attendance, but so are their kids who range in age from six to 26. Complete strangers bond over faded t-shirts and overpriced alcohol. Everyone becomes the same. And the band, especially from the 400s where I was sitting, looks exactly how they did back in the day. Suffocating white pants, British flags and messy, teased hair straight from 1984. And that is exactly the way it should be.

The show was also just exciting to watch. It was packed full of guitar solos, bass solos, build ups and surprises. Although Def Leppard incorporate lights, minor pyrotechnics and a huge on-stage screen, it was their actual performance that really shown through. Disappointing though was the absence of songs from the album Slang. Yeah I love me some sugar, but I loooooove me some Slang! Although I would have highly enjoyed seeing some of these songs, I was overall incredibly blown away, once again, by the magnitude and allure of Def Leppard's shows. They have something a lot of bands don't have these days and that's character. You truly haven't seen rock and roll until you've seen Def Leppard live.

They said they'd be back next year. Mark it in your calendar.

By Toronto Music Scene 2007.

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