Omaha, NE - Media Reviews

Def Leppard @ Omaha Civic Auditorium By Omaha World-Herald

The tremendous local turnout for the British band Def Leppard may still puzzle not only the rocking chair set, but the rocking younger crowd as well.

Why would a whopping 21,600 tickets to see the young, relatively new heavy metal band, breaking records set by Elvis Presley?.

Answers were evident Wednesday night in the first of two sold out concerts at the City Auditorium Arena.

Flanked by twin plumes of flame and nearly obscured by smoke, the young quintet exploded into 'Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop)' and preceded to do just that.

They relied heavily on songs from their best selling third album, 'Pyromania', which has been kept out of the No, 1 spot all year by only Michael Jackson and the Police.

The extraordinary success is due to the group's unique position among heavy metal bands.

Unlike most of the slag heap, Def Leppard keeps the tempo upbeat, keeps the clean guitar solos short and succinct, and includes strong melodies while keeping the thump of the heavy backbeat fully intact.

Lead vocalist Joe Elliot's screams are not as annoyingly high pitched as those of most heavy metal front men, and his slower singing has the high nasal quality of a Joe Walsh.

In concert, the band is quite appealing showing youthful good looks and energy rare to such outfits.

What's more, enthusiasm and a refreshingly straightforward sincerity.

Drummer Rick Allen, for example, uses only one bass drum.

A shining example of economy when some dumbbell bands use four.

But the band's real ley to success might have have been seen in one question asked Wednesday by Elliott, clad in a Union Jack muscle shirt (one of five designs available at busy T-shirt stands).

'Does anybody in the audience watch MTV?', he asked to a thunderous response.

The all music cable TV channel has probably been integral in bringing the youthful Brits to the fore of heavy metal.

The 10,800 at the show missed the world premiere of yet another Def Leppard video, but they got much more of a punch live.

After 40 minutes of engaging, hard-driving rock, though, the band botched the pace of the show by delivering their two most popular songs, 'Photograph' and 'Rock Of Ages' in the middle of the show.

The lengthy version of 'Rock Of Ages', which saw just about the whole place yelling 'I Want Rock 'n' Roll!' in unison, was the pinnacle of the evening.

Just about everything that followed it from the standard soloing by guitarist Phil Collen, to less distinctive older material, were crashingly anticlimactic.

If Def Leppard was really going to rock until they dropped, this is where they dropped.

Things never really got going again until the second encore, when Elliott stripped off his Union Jack muscle shirt to reveal a U.S.A. muscle shirt and the band whipped through a heavy metal version of 'Travellin' Band'.

By Omaha World-Herald 1983.

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