Evansville, IN - Media Reviews

Def Leppard Made Hot Night A Little Hotter By Rebecca Coudret

Other than being a little too warm, Sunday night was a perfect night for a concert. And for the nearly 4,400 at Mesker Amphitheatre, Def Leppard presented a hot concert.

It was a night of contrasts, to be sure. T-shirts hyped everything from "South Park" to the Hard Rock, from four-letter words to those #@*% symbols that, essentially, say the same thing. And, clad in denim shirts and Eddie Bauer khaki shorts, Yupsters walked along hand-in-hand before the concert.

It was a night of palpable intensity and anticipation; Moon Dog Mane was a nice opener, but lacked the intensity of the headliners. It was too light out when the band took the stage at a little after 7:30 p.m., but by 8, the sun was gone and the lightshow took over, illuminating all the bugs and cigarette smoke in oranges, reds, even pinks. Whether asked to "Roll With the Punches" or "Turn It Up As Loud As It Goes," the crowd responded. A little half-heartedly, maybe, but lots of swaying arms and on-cue hollering ("We can't hear you, Indiana!").

To an over-aged person (yeah, that's me), the show sounded like a lot of good, hard rock; the guitar playing was especially strong, and sometimes you could understand the words. To 28-year-old Anthony Notter, Moon Dog was "just so-so"; tie-die-clad Tim Strong disagreed. "They were ALL RIGHT!" he said with a grin. "A definite thumbs up! But they aren't anything like what's coming!"

A concert in 1999 isn't all that different from a concert in 1969. Only the players have changed. The newer band opens - and everyone waits for the smoother, more polished, more seasoned name-brand band to show up.

At 8:30, Def Leppard took the stage, encouraging the already excited crowd to welcome them with gusto, and launching into a kind of rockin' Rod Stewart sound - with emphasis on the rock. The high-energy show included the old, the new, the recently released, and while I couldn't understand many of the words lead singer Joe Elliott sang, I was in the minority. The crowd sang and swayed, arms lifted skyward, the occasional lighter's flame piercing the semi-darkness.

And it was fun, in a snarky kind of way, to watch the crowd's reaction when the band launched into a song from its newest album, "Euphoria." It was like last-call at a bar, or last-call for the porta-potties. Don't want to miss a standard; let's go now.

But mostly, this was a night for walking around to check out the crowd, to buying T-shirts, to gettin' into the beat of the heat. From "Hello, Evansville! We are Def Leppard and this - is - what - we - do!" to the fun of watching the crowd as the ballad-like pace of "Too Late" gave way to a great beat and thousands of nodding heads - to the final bows and waves, the band caught the crowd, held it - and drove it a little crazy.

Did Def Leppard have a good time? From the last row that seemed to be the case. Maybe those in the front rows could see a jaded boredom on the band members' faces. But up in the last row, the excitement sounded real, the beat was great, the music was exciting - and this overaged person didn't even use the earplugs given to her by a well-intentioned friend.

By Evansville Courier & Press 1999.

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