Portsmouth, England - Media Reviews

Till You Drop By Michael Heatley

With an audience nearer the baby-boomers than Gen X, Def Leppard are preaching to the wholly converted. So with gladrags on, a rock is most certainly not out of the question. In town for the first time since 1987, Leppard have pulled a full house to the kind of oak-panelled municipal venue they last played on their way up. It’s great to be able to see expressions on the performers' faces, not to mention the good, honest sweat that’s always accompanied a Def Leppard performance. The downstairs seats have been removed, 2,200 fans are in their appointed places and it's all set for a back to their roots-style Sheffield singalong.

Yet while their predecessors in the rock god stakes - Purple and the like - seem to pull an audience of all ages, the stereotypical Leppard fan is 35-55, greying/balding and waiting to be impressed. The perfect challenge for the ever enthusiastic Joe Elliott who, having got his terrier-like teeth into the balcony's collective trouser leg, simply refuses to let go until they’re having as good a time as he is.

Like Status Quo, Lep are victims of their own success. Their attempts at ringing the changes, album-wise - grunge on 'Slang', delicate Backstreet Boys-style harmonies on X - have cut little mustard with the faithful, judging by relative sales figures, so the stage formula is to keep the foot on the gas and roll on through the night regardless.

Only when the stool 'n' acoustics come out for 'Two Steps Behind' does Rick Allen lay off the metronomic beat which, by second encore 'Let's Get Rocked', will have most of the upper house jumping to it’s feet at ringmaster Joe's command. Full credit to the drummer, too , for living up to Joe's pre-concert claim that he's not only 'playing better than he did when he had two arms (but) than most would if they had three!'

If the intimacy of this performance is a bonus, there's a price to be paid. The major problem with such traditional town-Hall venues is their notoriously bad acoustics. Well equipped 'stadium bands' like Lep will compensate by pumping in more sound to get the required result. (An idle moment between acts yielded a staggering back-of-stage speaker cab count of 36).

Vocals and guitar solos suffered significantly clarity-wise, while bass volume was on the edge of acceptability throughout, resulting in rattling teeth to go with buzzing eardrums. No such problems for ex-Almighty frontman Ricky Warwick, who got up with just an acoustic for company and pushed his new, Elliott produced solo album most effectively to the incoming audience.

But Leppard are very much plugged in. the stage is remarkably clean - no wires or other impediments to obstruct the all-singing, all-dancing quartet - while the band offers varying degrees of sartorial elegance. Bleach-blond bassist Rick Savage is clearly not to old to model his girlfriends tops. Viv Campbell's T-shirt glows like a soap powder ad, while Elliott teams leather kecks with a curious velour affair. Phil Collen simply dispenses with a shirt, as per usual. Whether that's seemly for a bunch of 40-somethings who've been at it for '23 f**king years' (cheers, Joe) is in the eye of the beholder.

In his defence, Elliott has trained to get down to his ideal weight and, though he admits the wear and tear on the human body is twice as much as it was back in the day, looks ready to rock all night. It's specially good to see him on top form after the back trouble he manually suffered during the Euphoria tour three years ago. But he's still got to work some to match the energy levels of support act The Darkness fronted by Justin Hawkins, a red-bull fuelled dynamo with the dress sense of Alice Cooper and the vocal range of Freddie Mercury.

Compared with today's Kerrang! pin-ups, Leppard are indeed the exceptionally known quantity. Their set is structured to begin and end with their trademark songs, on the basis - as Elliott says - that "a new song every 30 minutes works as promotion, a new song every 5 minutes doesn't". Of those newies the uncompromising 'Four Letter Word' goes down significantly better than the subtler 'You're So Beautiful' and 'Now'.

Four Letter Word? Maybe we should be worried when Leppard start acting their age, not their shoe size. But, by the make up of this south-coast audience, all this showmanship doesn't seem to be bringing in da yoof. The 'X' on the backdrop surely indicates more than the tenth album they're plugging - Lep may well be at a crossroads. Either they attract new fans or risk playing to an increasingly greying audience. A big hit seems unlikely at this point, and they know it: 'Long Long Way To Go' was introduced as 'Our next single - we just don't know when.'

Standing at the crossroads mulling over the next move is not an option for Joe Elliott, it seems. "See ya next time and there will be a next time." He intones. But if he leaves it too long his audience may be more ready to drop than rock.

By Classic Rock 2003.

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