Def Leppard News - 26 Years Ago DEF LEPPARD End ADRENALIZE World Tour In Mexico City

Sunday, 29th September 2019

26 Years Ago DEF LEPPARD End ADRENALIZE World Tour In Mexico City

Mexico 1993

Def Leppard played the final show of their 241 date Adrenalize world tour in Mexico City 26 years ago on this day in 1993.

The band ended the 17 month tour, the longest in their history, at the Palacio de los Deportes. The second of two nights there.

The two shows saw the band open the seats up behind the main stage to accommodate more fans. An almost one-end In the Round show.

After a warm up date in Dublin and the public unveiling of Vivian Campbell at Wembley Stadium in April 1992 the band embarked on a small European club tour in May/early June.

The 13-Day club tour saw the band played 13 intimate shows across mainland Europe and Scandinavia. These dates were played to introduce Vivian to fans and to get ready for the main tour.

The full Adrenalize world tour began on 19th June in Dublin where they would unveil the new diamond shaped In The Round stage adorned with the new album cover.

The staging was one of the largest productions ever seen in an arena with a moving lighting rig that extended out over the crowd. Lasers were used along with a hydraulic drum riser that not only moved around the stage but up in the air as the two Rick's played the mid-section of Rocket.

Having played In The Round across the UK/Ireland, Australia/NZ and all of North America the band moved back to one end in June 1993. From the European tour until these last dates in Mexico the band reverted to what they referred to as a "flat" stage. The last European date saw them headline to 40,000 fans at the Don Valley stadium in Sheffield. A triumphant homecoming and one of the live highlights of their career.

Read some comments by the band members about the ending of the tour as published by Kerrang! magazine in October 1993.

Def Leppard 1993.

Def Leppard Mexico 1993 - End Of Tour Interview Quotes

Joe Elliott

"What do I wanna go home for?. I can pay my bills. Great!. I'd rather go onstage. I can go home any time, but I can't do this forever. I'd hate us to turn into Jethro Tull or Motorhead."

"You can't cancel 30 shows. Maybe two. When a doc says you need 30 days off, you just day. Dream on!. Out of 17 months, I've had a month in total where I've sucked, and that's not through being crap - it's usually due to atmospheric conditions or illness. It ain't easy being a rock god!."

"I think, in fairness, since Vivian's been in the band we haven't had to deal with a personality like Steve's, which was so erratic. It put everyone on edge, because you never knew when Steve walked in a room whether he'd fall flat on his face or he'd jump up on a table pretending to be Carmen Miranda. Now it's on an even keel. We all miss Steve, but from a personal point of view, it makes life a bit easier when you don't have to deal with those kind of things. This tour's been a real hoot."

"The idea of going home sucks the big one. I like Dublin. I like my home there. But these last 17 months have been the most enjoyable time I've ever had in this band. When we were finishing off the 'Hysteria' tour, our managers told us that if we wanted to do three more weeks of gigs, the promoters had offered them. The gigs were guaranteed sell-outs, but I said, 'No, I wanna go home'. The rest of the guys wanted to do it, and were really bummed when I refused. 48 hours later I said, 'I'll do 'em', but I don't really want to - I'm tired and my voice is knackered. We did the gigs, and 10 days after I got home I was going mental!. If I hated the last six weeks of that tour, what am I gonna be like this time when I don't want it to end?!. I'm gonna be a hopeless, cretinous basket case when I get home!. I'm gonna be running around at nine o'clock, not knowing what to do."

Mexico 1993

Vivian Campbell

"The vibe's easy going. I just make the tea. I can do whatever I want onstage. I can be goofy, whatever, or even play something funny, like a Beatles riff. If I'd done that in DIO, I would have got Ronnie's glare of death!. I really feel my personality can come out a lot more in this band."

"If we were gonna take a few weeks off and then go back out again, that'd be fine. But the schedule in the States has been five shows a week, and 70 percent of the tour's been in America and Canada. It's the same every week, and we play the same set every night. It's hard to be charged up when you're doing it that often without a break."

Phil Collen

"I wish we'd started the tour the way we're doing it now. We go onstage like this - we don't have any stage clothes. Our whole attitude is totally different these days. Without lasers and shit, people focus on the band. Before I thought we were putting on a great show, but we just got slagged for it, and as soon as we lost all that stuff and did some European festivals, we started going down 10 times better!."

Rick Allen

"17 months is a long haul, Maybe it's time for everyone to go home and get back to a normal way of life again."

Rick Savage

"For the past six weeks, actually playing onstage has been really painful, so I've not really enjoyed it. I've got tendonitis in one finger and it's completely shot. I can't even hold a plectrum. So in that respect I really want a break. I need a break, cos I'm falling apart!."

"When you've been on the road so long, there is a problem adapting to a normal way of life. On tour, you're in a cocoon. You're shepherded around, and you really don't have to think about too many things. It's a real culture shock when everything winds down and you go home and have to do things for yourself; simple things like going to the supermarket."

Fan photos and reviews from any past tour can be submitted - Here

Def Leppard - Mexico City 1993 Show Page
Def Leppard - Adrenalize Tour 1992/1993
Previous News - 28th September 2019
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