Milwaukee, WI - Media Reviews

Def Leppard Trots Out Its Latest Metal Monster By Thor Christensen

Amid the ongoing blight of limp, blow-dried heavy metal bands, it's something of a relief to encounter Def Leppard.

Five guys who set out for the jugular. but manage to write catchy pop tunes at the same time.

That said, Def Leppard's performance Thursday at the Arena was still a long exercise in redundancy.

There may be a band that can rescue heavy metal from the hoary depths it has sunk to in the last 10 years, but don't place your bets on these Brits.

Maybe Def Leppard never intended to be saviors.

Maybe no band can pull off that track.

Maybe, as its detractors (and even some of its proponents) argue, heavy metal's sole purpose on earth is to bash out a few monster power-guitar chords, raise a few fists, and call it a night.

If that's the real goal, Def Leppard got the job done and then some Thursday.

Galloping relentlessly all over the in-the-round stage they've constructed for their first tour in almost four years, the Leps certainly weren't lacking for athletic energy.

Nor was there any drought of flash.

Working with an arsenal of lasers, smoke effects and computerized lights, the group performed in front of spectacular backdrops throughout the show.

The end-of-the-world scenario depicted by the lights and lasers during the new song 'Gods Of War' was admittedly pretty chilling stuff.

Over its seven year career, the band has made a few pleasant embellishments upon heavy metal's worn manual of monsters power-guitar chords.

There is some semblance of true grit in lead singer Joe Elliott's banshee wail, and when his band-mates added call and response vocals in 'Animal' or backed him up on the chorus of 'Too Late For Love', the band demonstrated how easily heavy metal can be made accessible to the masses.

But in the end, Def Leppard's jugular-chasing was futile.

You need only to have looked to co-lead guitarists Steve Clark and Phil Collen to see how little ingenuity Def Leppard has.

When Collen's turn came to indulge in that 20-year-old metal ritual, the extended guitar solo, all he could manage was the same old speed-demon nonsense.

Clark, meanwhile, spent most of the show pretending to be Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, one of few guitarists who did find ways to expand heavy metal's limits.

With his satin neck scarves, his red, double-necked Gibson SG guitar and his crazy-knees strut, Clark had all of Page's visual trademarks down pat.

But alas, there wasn't an inkling of Page's originality as a guitarist.

Rick Allen, staging his first tour with the band as a one-armed drummer (the result of a 1984 car crash) showed that even with the help of a computer-assisted drum kit, his playing is only rudimentary at best.

But the strongest case against Def Leppard came during the encore, when the band decided to tackle a cover version of a classic rock song.

It chose an easy one, 'Good Golly Miss Molly' but the result was surely one of the most ham-fisted stabs at Little Richard ever attempted.

By Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 1987.

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