Def Leppard News - 16 Years Ago DEF LEPPARD End X/Ten World Tour In MOSCOW, RUSSIA

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Sunday, 24th November 2019

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16 Years Ago DEF LEPPARD End X/Ten World Tour In MOSCOW, RUSSIA

By Alesha

Def Leppard ended the 2002/2003 X/Ten world tour in Moscow, Russia on this day in 2003.

The show took place at the DS Luzhniki Sports Hall.

Their first ever visit the the city after making their Russian debut in St. Petersburg on the 22nd.

The 'X/Ten' album had been released in July/August 2002 and initially promoted with a sporadic four month promo tour.

The main world tour had begun in Sendai, Japan on 17th November 2002.

The 151 date world tour took the band across Japan, USA/Canada, UK,Ireland, and Europe.

Between 22 and 24 songs were played each night for the first four or five months of the tour.

On the first night in Sendai the band opened the show with the first ever playing of 'Ring Of Fire' which featured some co-lead vocal parts by Rick Savage.

By the second night the band were opening with Side One of the 'High 'n' Dry' which was also a first and the setlist was changed up each night. Over three nights in Tokyo 31 different songs were played.

Only four new songs from the current album were played during the tour - 'Now', 'Four Letter Word', 'You're So Beautiful' and 'Long Long Way To Go'.

Following the Japanese leg the band travelled to the USA for 10 main shows after opening with a radio festival show in San Diego.

A UK/Irish tour followed in February 2003 before a huge late March to early October US/Canadian tour.

For the first time in many year the band would then return to the UK for a second run of 10 shows in October and were joined on stage by Queen's Brian May on the last night at Hammersmith Odeon in London.

A short European tour followed which ended with the band's first ever shows in Russia and the final 151st show in Moscow on 24th November 2003.

Earlier in the day Joe, Vivian and Phil played a short acoustic set on local radio. The first time a Western rock band had ever done so.