Def Leppard News - Watch Joe Elliott/Phil Collen's Def Leppard Classic Rock Award Speech

Tuesday, 24th January 2017

Watch Joe Elliott/Phil Collen's Def Leppard Classic Rock Award Speech

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Def Leppard members Joe Elliott and Phil Collen accepted the Classic Rock Award in Tokyo, Japan on 11th November and their full speeches are available.

The event took place at Ryogoku Kokugikan Arena in Tokyo, Japan in front of 8,000 fans.

Read more about the ceremony.

Joe and Phil accepted the Album Of The Year award for the self-titled Def Leppard album from veteran Japanese rock journalist Masa Ito.

The full show was broadcast in HD in Japan starting on 24th December 2016 via their version of Hulu.

Read their full acceptance speech below which was part of a seven minute segment on the show.

Watch the full video on the YouTube playlist which also includes new videos of Phil performing 'Mistreated' and 'Modern Day Cowboy'.

Phil performed alongside Tesla's Jeff Keith, Frank Hannon and Brian Wheat plus Robert/Dean DeLeo and drummer Ray Luzier.

Team Rock/Planet Rock ended for financial reasons in late 2016 so it's not clear if the footage will ever be shown outside of Japan.

2016 Classic Rock Awards - Full Acceptance Speech

Dave Mustaine - "Our next presenter is Japan's most famous rock critic and a personal great friend of mine. Masa Ito."

Masa Ito - "The winner is Def Leppard."

Joe Elliott - "Thank you."

Phil Collen - "Thank you so much."

Joe Elliott - "Well I have to say this is a fantastic surprise. To win an award for album of the year 36 years after our first album came out. We're kind of used to the idea that these days we only win like Lifetime Achievement awards. So this is really special. I should probably thank a few people. Howard Kaufman and Mike Kobayashi our management team, The grown ups in the room. Who take care of all the business as perfect as they do. And Ronan McHugh who engineered and produced the album with us and did such a great job. Richard Smith the art guy. Ross Halfin who took all the photos."

"Geoff Barton for suggesting that we put the album out in the magazine and that was a rip roaring success. Probably one of the few magazines to ever enter a record shop. And to Brian May who did a fantastic foreword for the magazine, who's not been very well recently. So thanks very much Brian and get well soon."

Phil Collen - "We'd also like to thank Japan because when we released the album a year ago it was Number One in Japan as we toured here. So thank you to all our fans and just thanks to everyone that's been involved in it. Thank you."

Joe Elliott - "And finally. There's a lot of people here tonight that have inspired us over the years and there's a few people that have left us this year. So we'd like to dedicate this to Lemmy, to Dale Griffin from Mott The Hoople and to David Bowie. Cherish your heroes, you'll miss them when they're gone."

Phil Collen - "Thank you."

Dave Mustaine - "Once again please give a big hand to Joe Elliott and Phil Collen of Def Leppard. The winners of Album Of the Year."

Backstage Interview Quotes

Joe Elliott - "Yeah it's, well look at the gathering out there. It's the rock and roll heaven isn't it. You know I mean you've got Jimmy Page, you've got Jeff Beck, you've got Joe Perry, you've got Cheap Trick. Phil Collen playing with Delta Deep. I mean the DeLeo brothers from Stone Temple Pilots. There's just a fantastic collection of musicians and rock stars. And here, all here. You know not in London or New York. Actually Tokyo you know. So it's fantastic. It's such an unusual thing to do. That it's added an extra dimension to the whole evening."

Joe's message to Japanese fans - "I'm in Tokyo for the Classic Rock Awards 2016. It's an absolute honour to be nominated and it's an even better honour to win it. It's always a pleasure to be here and we were here exactly a year ago promoting the new album and it was Number One as we played the shows. It's just great to be back and doing it here. Thank you. Domo arigato."

Phil's message to Japanese fans - "Great being here. It's been a year and we've missed it so much so we're really glad to be here. Thank you to all our fans and obviously I know it's an English magazine Classic Rock but thanks everyone for getting it sorted out. It's amazing, we're having such a great time and you'll love it because we love it."

Classic Rock Awards - Photos