Pittsburgh/Burgettstown, PA - Fan Reviews

Fan Review - By Michael Hodil II

This was my second time I ever got to see Def Leppard, my first came in 2006 at this same venue less than two weeks after my 11th birthday when they were with Journey. This show came a few weeks before my 17th birthday.

The show started like pretty much every other show with Lita Ford. Her portion of the show went very well with hits like "Kiss Me Deadly" and "Close Your Eyes." As a fan of Close Your Eyes, it just wasn't right without Ozzy singing it. Nonetheless, she still had a very good performance.

Of course after Lita came Poison. Lead singer Brett Michaels who is a native of the Pittsburgh area came out in a custom made #69 Pittsburgh Steelers jersey and waving his Terrible Towel along with many of the audience members waving theirs. There was so many towels waving, I thought of the late Steelers radio broadcaster Myron Cope who would probably in his typical high-pitched, nasal Pittsburgh voice say something like "Would you look at all those Terrible Towels? Steeler Nation is in full participation as the Terrible Towel is poised to strike!!!! Yoii!!!!!!" Something like that any way. Poison's performance was excellent performing hits like "Every Rose Has It's Thorn," "Heaven's Fallen Angels," and "Talk Dirty to Me." I was impressed with their performance.

Then finally came the best part of the night. I personally was very excited to finally get to see these guys once again. During intermission between Poison and Def Leppard, they had this clock counting down the time till they finally took the stage. Then finally they came on. Opening with the hit "Undefeated," the crowd was already into it. The song was followed by the single version of Hysteria-album classic Rocket. After Rocket, they went back about 30 years and performed High 'n' Dry album classic "Let It Go." Personally, I wish the show would've been done on a Saturday night instead so I could've got to see them play "High 'n' Dry (Saturday Night)," as that's one of my personal all-time favorites of theirs. They then performed songs like "Make Love Like a Man" and "Love Bites," which I think they should've put that later in their sets instead of here. Before going into the acoustic set, they performed "Gods of War," which hadn't been performed in Pittsburgh in a few years, but obviously had been done throughout this tour already.

They then went on to their acoustic portion of the set, which was one of my favorite parts of the show. I thought it was cool to see them do two of the lesser-known and underrated songs which were "Where Does Love Go When It Dies?" and "Now," even if they were only snippets. It was good to see at least a little bit of a song off of the Slang album other than the title track. Then obviously came "WLAHC" "Have You Ever" and "2 Steps." Then they came back into the electric with "Women" and the usual "BOTH/Switch" thing they always do. They then finished off the set with songs like "Photograph" and "Sugar" and of course the Encore was "Rock of Ages."

Overall, I have to say this experience was better than my first Def Leppard experience. They had a better setlist for one thing. Another thing was unlike 2006, it wasn't raining like a you-know-what. (Thank god I was in pavilion for the first show too.) One of the best things about the night was the fact that they played 8/12 of the Hysteria album. They of course did the album in its entirety a couple months back in Vegas. I enjoyed all three bands, especially the best band that will ever live, Def Leppard. I look forward to seeing them again the next time they come to this venue or the one in Cleveland since I'm close to both venues being that I live in Warren, Ohio. Of course I'd like to see them play in Youngstown one of these days. Either way, next time they're in my area, you bet I will once again be there. That's it for this review.

Back

share this page: