Brisbane, QLD, Australia - Media Reviews
Def Leppard concert review Brisbane Entertainment Centre show 2018 By Baz McAlister
SEEING Def Leppard has been worth a 30-year wait. Since fourth album Hysteria dropped in 1987 the band and I have never managed to cross paths in person – until tonight.
It’s a definite tick off the bucket list after experiencing a gig crackling with equal parts nostalgia, spectacle and master craftsmanship.
On their 2018 Australian tour, Def Leppard mark three decades of their seminal hit-loaded album Hysteria by playing it in order, from go to whoa. Of their 11 studio albums, Hysteria (produced by Mutt Lange, who’s responsible for some of AC/DC’s greatest discs) still accounts for one in four of their 100 million units of record sales to date, and its centrepiece is the song most people associate with the band, Pour Some Sugar on Me.
Few bands have managed to maintain their core line-up for so long, but the UK rockers - now mostly in their late 50s – are still fronted by Joe Elliott, voice and glorious mane seemingly unchanged from the glory days, bouncing on stage in a gold-brocaded military-style jacket. Drummer Rick Allen has a special affinity with the Hysteria material - over three gruelling years, while making the record, he re-learned his craft after a car crash took his arm.
It absolutely shows tonight - the big-screen shows Allen is at times laser-focused, and at times grinning from ear to ear. The band know these 12 blockbuster songs inside out, which lets them have a little fun and play with the material without compromising what most of the crowd here tonight have come to hear - like feeding a little taste of David Bowie’s Heroes into one tune. Elliott is clearly a fan - his t-shirt is emblazoned with Queen Elizabeth bearing a Ziggy Stardust lightning bolt.
Highlights included Gods of War, with its big crunchy riff, and perennial singalong Rocket, which has the crowd enthusiastically chanting along, while a state of the art video wall blasts images of satellites and lift-offs. That wall also shows the band’s journey during the title track, in a moving montage. But the aforementioned signature saccharine anthem is the apex of the show, as strong a mission statement for this band as any - little bit metal, little bit glam, little bit Queen, little bit risque, and all authentic. Guitarists Phil Collen - still enviably fit and shredding shirtless at 60 - and Vivian Campbell get their chances to shine during the set, taking the spotlight for several solos and bouncing off each other’s energy. Before Gods of War, the band take a moment’s silence to honour late guitarist Steve Clark, who passed away just after Hysteria dropped, when the band were at the height of their fame. It’s a moving moment, especially when Collen then launches into the part Clark originated on the Hysteria album.
The Hysteria set flags a little towards the end, with fewer bona fide hits towards the back of the album - and to be honest things are a little flat by the time the unremarkable Love and Affection closes things out. With Hysteria complete, the band leave the stage, but Def Leppard were never going to get away without an encore of hand-picked greatest hits - and the crowd know it.
Steaming straight in with classic Let it Go, which predates the Hysteria days, they cool things down with lighter-waver When Love and Hate Collide, then launch into Let’s Get Rocked, the cheeky, bouncy number that kicked off their 90s era. The band bid Brisbane farewell with a one-two punch from Hysteria’s predecessor Pyromania: biggest hit singles Rock of Ages, and evergreen fave Photograph.
Not many bands have the spandex-clad balls to replicate a hit record live, start to finish, but in this case it’s a show for the ages: at once an introduction to, and a celebration of, a band who’ve managed to stay the course through tough times.
Def Leppard were supported tonight by their ‘big brothers’ – 70-year-old Klaus Meine’s German rockers Scorpions, formed a full decade before Leppard - on, unbelievably, their first tour of Australia. The audience were clearly hanging out for best-known hits Rock You Like a Hurricane, which closed their set, and Glasnost-era power ballad Wind of Change, but the band won some Aussie hearts with a solid set of rock classics.
By News.com 2018.
Def Leppard w/ Scorpions @ Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Brisbane 06/11/2018 By Sam Siacca
Scorpions and Def Leppard obviously have a lot in common, but there was one noticeable difference between the two on the night of the 6th November at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre. The clear difference was that while Def Leppard are a staple in the Australian concert landscape, this was the first time Scorpions had performed a national tour in the sunny land down under, with the exception of their one-off show at Melbourne’s Palais Theatre in 2016. They made that clear from the get-go, sharing a crowd-erupting story about how they, as a young, upstart band in the early 70’s pondered the possibility of having the privilege to work “all the way in Australia someday.”
On a consistent basis throughout their 13-song support set, frontman Klaus Meine ensured that we were consistently reminded that this tour is special to them, and based on the raw energy in their performance and the amount of fun it was clear they were having with us, we had no choice but to believe them wholeheartedly.
It was clear the Scorpions diehards didn’t care that the Entertainment Centre was only filled to half capacity for the first few songs, and as the band tore through Going Out With A Bang, Make It Real, The Zoo and Coast To Coast, so did a large portion of said audience, the rest seem to appreciate what they may have been missing out on for over 50 years.
Arguably the standout moment, the point that people began to really open their eyes to Scorpions, came when most of the Entertainment Centre had just taken their seats, and it also came in an unconventional way. Klaus again thanked us all, before, perhaps self-depreciatingly stating “This is a song from our newest album so you may not have heard it at all, but you can definitely sing along to it.”
And alas, We Built This House filled the arena, eyes widening and heads banging as people who had only ever heard of one or two Scorpions songs realized that they might need to listen to a lot more of them. A lyric video accompanied the song as lasers lost all control and choreography, and the third biggest applause of the set affirmed that ‘that new song was just as classic.’
The second biggest applause of the set came immediately after being blindsided by Send Me An Angel followed directly by Wind of Change. An epic three-minute drum and light solo transitioned into the closing few songs, and by the time the hour was up, we’d been so transfixed that we’d almost forgotten about the actual song that a lot of people were probably excited to see them play, which is why the place went absolutely nuts the moment the roaring opening riff of Rock You Like A Hurricane crashed against the four walls.
By the time Def Leppard took the stage, the place was packed almost entirely to capacity, as people young and old applauded the rare opportunity to hear the iconic Hysteria played live in full. And that’s exactly what they got. Woman, perennial singalong Rocket, (accompanied by big screen imagery of rockets taking off) Animal and the slow-jamming Love Bites were performed before the band spoke a single word, and a particularly surprising highlight of the night came around this point in time in the form of a short video tribute to Steve Clark, the original guitarist up until his untimely death in 1991, just after Hysteria skyrocketed the group into global fame.
As you’d probably expect, the place went nuts as Pour Some Sugar On Me, the third single and arguably the band’s most recognisable song was performed, while later, the spotlight was placed on Rick Allen, an ear to ear smile beaming on his face whenever the big screen focused on the one-armed drummer.
The last few songs on the album, while not necessarily smash hits in their own right, still appeased the audience, a large portion of whom most likely listened to the album from the start of side A to the end of side B with eager ears and fond memories throughout the years, and after Love and Affection the band left the stage with everyone knowing they’d be back for the encore.
But what kind of encore would you expect at a show dedicated to playing a full album? Exactly what you’re thinking; more of the band’s biggest hits spanning four other albums, including Let It Go from the ’81 record High ‘n’ Dry and Let’s Get Rocked from ‘92’s Adrenalize. As if to add that one last grand statement, finishing the night off was Rock of Ages and Photograph, both from the equally as captivating predecessor to Hysteria, ‘83’s Pyromania.
It’s safe to say that on a night dedicated to taking diehard Scorpions and Def Leppard fans back in time, they also bought a lot of the rest of us back with them.
By Silver Tiger Media 2018.
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