Lincoln, NE - Media Reviews
Def Lepapard Performance Is Solid Amidst An Elaborate Maze Of Lasers By Maureen Bogues
The British band Def Leppard rocked 4,599 Lincoln fans in an elaborate show of light, lasers and pop metal music at Pershing Auditorium Monday night.
Now in the of its Seven Day Weekend Tour, the five-man ensemble blended favoorite hits from its 'Hysteria' and 'Pyromania' albums and threw ina few new tunes from the 1992 release 'Adrenalize' in a well-staged spectacle.
The concert started nearly an hour late with 'Let's Get Rocked' but the fans didn't seem to mind and greeted the musicians with enthusiastic applause.
The youthful audience also sang or clapped along with such hits as 'Hysteria', 'Foolin'', 'Pyromania' and the power ballads Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad and 'Tonight'..
Led by shaggy-haired lead singer Joe Elliott, the band moved easily, if methodically, through two-hour, 20-minute performance.
Def Leppard's brand of hook-laden guitar rock doesn't allow for many solos, but they do deliver a well-choreographed show.
Elliott, who sounded ragged due to a cold, did nearly all of the talking for his four bandmates: guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell, bassist Rick Savage and drummer Rick Allen.
With the aid of wireless mikes, the musicians moved about on a diamond-shaped stage beneath a mechanzed maze of lights and lasers that looked like an oversized erector set.
This is the band's first North American tour in a turbulent five-year period that saw the death of guitarist Steve Clark in a 1991 accidental overdose and an accident that severed Allen's left arm.
Allen, barefoot and clad in shorts, used his two feet and one arm to provide soid percussion on a specially taiored drum kit.
He sat atop a platform that moved horizontally and vertically in different songs.
Clark was paid tribute at the concert's midpoint in a short but heartfelt speech by Elliott.
"Time heals and life goes on", he said, and he also praised Allen's efforts to re-learn the drums.
Most of the program was devoted to original music, except for an entertaining segment in which Elliott picked up a guitar, joked about becoming 'unplugged' And joined his band mates in jamming on riffs borrowed from metallica, AC/DC and one chorus of the Rolling Stones' 'You Can't Always Get What You Want'.
The visual peak came during the high-powered 'Rocket' when the auditorium was transformed into a space capsule with moving lights and briliant lasers.
The band closed its regular set with the spritied 'Pour Some Sugar On Me', and returned for two encores.
'Love Bites' and the catchy tribute to Marilyn Monroe, 'Photograph'.
By Lincoln Star 1993.
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