Louisville, KY - Media Reviews

Def Leppard/Heart review at the Fair By Eddy Metal

What a great show. Thanks to the people at the Fair for the hookup! We appreciate it here at LMN. The Fair rocks. The best part is the food. I indulged a bit too much, I think! Brats with onions, funnel cakes, ice cream, corndogs, I was fargin' bad!

The Fair people hit a home run with this show! How can you go wrong with Def Leppard and Heart?

I love Def Leppard. I've been a fan since the beginning.

I had never seen Heart live, so I was quite curious. Turns out that Nancy Wilson is a bona fide guitar hero. Armed with her Duo Fender guitar heads, her Gretsch hollowbody electric guitar, and her top o' the line Orange cabs, she let out a can of whup-ass on Louisville this night, running around smiling, looking cute, and apparently having the time of her life! I knew she was good, but I didn't know she was that good! I was very impressed. Her guitar tone was classic! And believe me, she was letting loose this night! And vocalist Annie Wilson? What can you say about this legendary diva? I don't care if they have to eventually wheel her out onto the stage on a flatbed truck, the woman can sing like an angel. People are a bit cruel about chubby rock stars (I heard a lot of mean jokes that night) but really, if you had her money, don't tell me you would not excess in a late night Twinky or Ho Ho!

For me it would be the occasional creamy ho ho. Ha!

Chubby or not, I love her voice and music. Annie's voice soars to heights others can only dream of. Both Ann and Nancy are a force to be reckoned with, and have nigh reached legendary rock status. Their music sure sets them apart from any other female-fronted, female guitarist-led band I've ever heard. Vixen? No way! Lita Ford? Nah. Kittie? Puhleeze!

Heart takes the cake and easily wins the best female rockers award! Two thumbs up for these talented sisters. The Wilson sisters have been playing so long together that they have a magic about them that cannot be beat. Heart played Led Zeppelin's "Rock n Roll," "Magic," "Straight On," "What About Love," "These Dreams," a decent new tune called "WTF," a very cool version of "Crazy On You" that started with an absolutely killer acoustic intro by Nancy on a giant, full-bodied acoustic guitar (she was smokin' that thing, too!), and of course the classic "Barracuda." Then they ended the show with a tribute to their influences growing up. Ann said they started when Nancy was 8, and Ann was 12! They played Led Zeppelin's "Battle Of Evermore" (which sounded great with a chick's voice! Nancy even broke out a mandolin for it) and The Who's "Rain On Me."

Heart had a backing group of young whippersnappers who nailed the music to a tee. They didn't mess around, they played all the hits their fans expected them to play. Everyone was happy, including yours truly. I would go see them again in a second.

Def Leppard was next. I saw them five years ago and was impressed then, but this time might have been even better! The guitar sounds this night were off the hook. Phil Collin is a very underrated guitarist in my eyes. Someone told me he likes to recreate his solos on his albums exactly, and after seeing them for the second time, I believe it. Phil wasn't lazy, nor was he content to slop through solos the way some guitarists do because it is easier. He hit every note and every harmonic. Someone told me that vocalist Joe Elliot uses pitch correctors live in case he doesn't hit the notes. To be perfectly honest, I don't care as long as it sounds good when it comes out of those speakers! That's what counts. It's amazing the technology we have now in the music business. Thirty years ago, if a singer was off key, it sounded like doody. Now it automatically fixes the problem with no buttons to push at all! Is that cool or what? And let's be honest, Joe Elliot's high-pitched vocals are not exactly easy to sing, especially when he's touring constantly and has that much strain on his voice. Joe sounded great, pitch correction or not. I think maybe he sang better last time they were here, but not by very much at all, if at all! Guitarist Vivian Campbell (from Belfast, Ireland), whom also played with Ronnie James Dio, is an even better guitarist than Phil Collin. But the two of them together? Fuggetaboutit.

This was a guitarist's wet dream. The tones of these two guitar monsters were amazing. Phil even had a camera on his headstock facing the guitar fretboard, so you could see him playing the riffs note for note! I thought that that was pretty cool. Vivian Campbell's sound and style was so good you could cry. Drummer Rick Allen and bassist Rick Savage were on the ball as well as they waded through hit after hit. Rick Savage was all over the stage, rockin, in every square foot of the place it seemed!

The stage setup was pretty ordinary, some screens arranged randomly above and around the stage. Clips, pictures, designs, the Union Jack flag, and all sorts of stuff were seen during the band's performance on these large screens. The guys were youthful-looking and moved about like they were twenty-five. Def Leppard played a nice long set of classics like "Animal," "Foolin," "Love Bites," and killer duo guitar soloing in "Rocket," a semi-acoustic rendition of "Two Steps Behind" from the The Last Action Hero soundtrack. They also did "Bringing On The Heartbreak" (which I loved), "Hysteria," "Armageddon It," "Photograph" with pictures on the large screens of the band's history and also deceased guitarist Steve Clark, "Pour Some Sugar On Me," in which Def Lep's cameramen pointed out the hottest women in the crowd and put them on the large screens for everyone to see (and boy, were they hot! Five years ago was the same scene too, seriously hot females out for a good, old-fashioned Eighties rock 'n' roll show!), then the band wrapped up with "Rock Of Ages," which featured a tribute to rock 'n' roll history in photos on the large screens. Hendrix, The Who, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, all the classics were paid tribute to in this last song! The people absolutely loved Def Leppard and packed the place pretty darn good, so laugh all you want about the Eighties cheese band who came back to rock the Fair. It was a blast. I saw so many old and new friends, and I'm grateful to say that my date and I were able to see the show in all its glory. I was kind of bummed they did not play "Too Late For Love," though. Hopefully it won't be another five years before they come back again! One weird thing was that I never saw even one person smoking weed. And everyone knows that you usually see people at concerts toking up like they were Cheech and Chong! Odd.

By Eddy Metal @ Louisville Music News 2011.

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