Edmonton, AB - Media Reviews
Def Leppard shows stamina at Rexall Place By Mike Ross
Impressive stamina on its own is never enough. Ask any wife.
Def Leppard has stamina to spare. Pioneers of the so-called “bubble metal” genre, these British lads have survived adversity that would’ve scuttled lesser bands, particularly the death of Steve Clark in 1991, and drummer Rick Allen losing his left arm seven years before. Yet like a certain rabbit associated with a popular brand of battery, Def Leppard just keeps going and going and going – a popular brand of rock band that’s weathered, and defied, the passing trends of music to remain true to their blithering middle-of-the-road sound. Having never even tried to fix what isn’t broken, they remain on top of the arena rock world to this day, now blessed to rock out their days as a nostalgia act. How do they do it? Stamina.
But in the end, for all their gifts, as the joke goes, they’re still just playing Def Leppard songs.
The band’s sold-out concert at Rexall Place Thursday night was another low-impact aerobic workout, filled to the brim with power balladry, sweet melodies and rock songs on the subject of rocking - like every other concert they’ve ever played in this building. Or in the world.
The crowd couldn’t get enough. From the opening Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop), through Rock On, Rocket, Let’s Get Rocked, and Rock of Ages in the encore, it was a place to bang one’s head softly. There were no risks, little left to chance, no hysteria in Hysteria, no fire in Pyromania, no doom in Armageddon It, a lot of sugar in Pour Some Sugar On Me and all the songs sounded the same. It was, in short, a perfectly predictable evening with perfectly dependable band where you always know exactly what you’re going to get.
And the problem is? The fans ate it up and demanded more. Frontman Joe Elliott was genuinely moved by the tremendous response, what he called the noisiest crowd on the tour so far. “If they could all be like this,” he commented wistfully at one point.
With the well-oiled guitarist Phil Collen shredding like a champ all night, a saving grace, the rest of the guys performing competently, the set was larded with slow songs. Standing out in the ballad department was a solo turn from Elliott on Two Steps Behind, dedicated to Clark and sort of a fireside, Wrigley’s Gum sort of moment, but it worked. Elsewhere, the band practically rendered the power ballad ritual moot since only rarely did tempos, or heartbeats, exceed 100 beats per minute. Once upon a time, say, a real rock band would pause in their rocking to deliver a slow song – and that’s when the Bic lighters came out. As everyone of a certain age knows, real rock demands a tribute of real fire. Now it’s all them fancy cellphones. Not the same. And you’d totally drain your battery if you lit them up during Def Leppard’s slow songs.
The opening band One Bad Son, from that hotbed of music Saskatoon, seem like nice guys who got a call “out of nowhere.” Come open for Def Leppard? Sure! Chance of a lifetime. Sadly, the band came off as not ready for prime time, with weak songs drawn from a Bon Jovian world, a throwback glam-rock style that might be huge in an alternate universe where Nirvana never happened, and were ultimately derailed by a screamy singer with a tin ear who thinks he’s good. The very thing that makes him a bad singer makes him incapable of knowing it. Such cruel irony.
By Edmonton Sun 2015.
Def Leppard bring rock of ageless to Rexall Place By Sandra Sperounes
Some pop acts might be a tough sell in Edmonton, but not rock bands. Especially classic rock bands.
A nearly sold-out Rexall Place — with more than 10,000 fans — bathed in the sweet, sweet ’80s sugar of British survivors Def Leppard.
(In contrast, Calgary’s latest dance-pop star Kiesza only played to about 500 fans at a half-full Union Hall on Wednesday night.)
No fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh foolin’, Joe Elliott and his four bandmates, including greased-up guitarist Phil Collen, had the crowd eating out of their hands for 90 minutes. An almost even split of men and women, many in their 40s and older, cheered, raised their fists, sang Foolin’ or Love Bites or Pour Some Sugar On Me at the top of their lungs, and pretended they were 16 (or 21) all over again.
The Leppards opened with Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop), which brought some fans to their feet … until they dropped into their seats a few seconds later. Not surprisingly, the Brits focused heavily on their first few albums from the ’80s — High ’n’ Dry, Pyromania, Hysteria — but they also threw in a few songs from 1999’s Euphoria, such as Promises and Paper Sun. Those two were followed by one of Def Lep’s classics, 1987’s Love Bites, which sounded like it was about to segue into Bryan Ferry’s steamy Slave To Love at any moment.
For much of the night, Elliott strutted around like a master — splaying out his hands, flicking his flatironed locks, and commanding his love slaves to sing as he waved his scarf-sheathed microphone stand in the air. Yet the 55-year-old singer wasn’t above displaying his love for the crowd — regularly waving between songs or thanking fans for more than 30 years of support.
“That’s why we keep coming back here because you are the way you are,” Elliott explained, before playing a solo acoustic version of Two Steps Behind, accompanied by the glow of phones and a few lighters around the arena.
As decent as his rendition was, Def Leppard has always been more than just a one-man show. They come from an era when every member of a band was required to ooze charisma — not just stand in one spot for most of the night. (Kings of Leon, I’m looking at you.)
Collen, guitarist Viv Campbell and bassist Rick Savage didn’t disappoint on Thursday night — often standing in a row with Elliott, adding their sublime harmonies to mid-tempo rockers such Armageddon It, Rocket, Hysteria, and the two songs in the encore, Rock of Ages and Photograph.
When they weren’t lined up, they took turns walking up and down the catwalk, cranking out riffs or testing the flexibility of their legs. (One-armed drummer Rick Allen also got his chance to shine, playing a few solos here and there.) All of them were so watchable, you almost forgot there was a huge screen at the back of the stage — often showing photos from Def Lep’s past.
Saskatoon’s One Bad Son tried to make the most of its opening slot — you could tell frontman Shane Volk desperately wanted to impress the crowd, if not the Leppards themselves, with his rock-star moves.
He twirled around onstage like he was trying to make himself dizzy. His raspy wail somersaulted around the arena. He talked about rock ’n’ roll, pointed to his crotch, and made fun of the fans who only came to see Def Leppard.
Yet, apart from his banter, Volk didn’t always bother to make a connection with the audience as he belted out heavy bar-rock songs such as Black Buffalo, One Bad Son’s latest single.
He looked nervous at the start — running around like a five-year-old hopped up on sugar — and only started to settle in and sing to fans during the second half of the band’s too-long 45 minute set. But then, he almost murdered the room with another fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh song — a messy cover of Talking Heads’ art-rock classic, Psycho Killer. Ack!
Run, run, run, run, run, run, run away.
By Edmonton Journal 2015.
Def Leppard past its prime By Derek Owen
It was a tough night on the entertainment front Thursday night in Edmonton. Leadership debate, or Def Leppard concert. Some choice.
More than 12,000 Edmontonians paid good money not to sit at home and watch the carnage on TV, instead plunking their patooties on hard plastic to hear the British band take a run through their greatest hits. ONE. MORE. TIME.
This is becoming WAY too familiar around these parts.
Def Leppard tried to pull one over on the audience at Rexall Place – much like Prentice was doing on TV around the same time – posting giant ads for their “highly anticipated” new album later this year. Given the band’s set list wound up favouring songs from 1983-87, it’s not clear how many fans will be diversifying the economy by buying their new release.
Fans may not have had any idea how close they were to going home early to watch the debate as lead singer Joe Elliott nearly blew his voice at the end of set opener Rock! Rock! Till You Drop. Like the 70-year-old across the street who decides he wants to give skateboarding one more try, Elliott decided towards the end of the song to go for that elusive high note. He does, and hits it! But he ends up torching his entire upper register in the process. He hid it well, coasting through the remainder of the band’s 90-minute set and staying away from the really high stuff. The guy is a true professional.
As this band ages, it’s more and more evident they are losing their edge. Animal, one of their signature tunes off the 15 million-selling 1987 album Hysteria, was virtually unrecognizable for the first 30-45 seconds of the tune. The fans, turned back to 1987 in their minds, loved it unquestioningly, but it plodded along, sounding tired and boring. One of the top pop-metal tunes of that era, it was sad to hear this great song played without the edge it has on record, and a definite sign that despite the perplexing juxtaposition of a full house, these guys are a shadow of their former performing selves. Same goes for Foolin’, a smart minor key tune that quickly flips into a beautiful melody for the bridge, but on stage it sounded limp.
Guitarist Phil Collen must be proud of his pectoral muscles because they were oiled up when he took the stage, but in the musical department, it was his partner and Belfast native Vivian Campbell who was the only member of the band able to make Def Leppard sound interesting to anyone who wasn’t there to hear a touring jukebox – Rick Allen’s heroic drum solo notwithstanding. Campbell’s playing and soloing had an edge to it; it contained spark that was absent in the rest of the band. What makes this even more remarkable is that he’s coming off a round of chemotherapy after a cancer diagnosis last year. Real fans of music were grateful that you just can’t kill off Irishmen like Campbell.
Paper Sun – from 1999 – was proof enough that almost everything they recorded after 1987 is just not worth listening to – four minutes of your life you’ll never get back. Promises came out nicely, however, possibly the best tune they’ve written post-Hysteria, shining brightly with the same melody of Stagefright, a righteous rocking tune off 1983’s Pyromania that was not heard at the concert. They redeemed themselves a bit on that one.
Armageddon It was a really odd one, but not because of the music – performed in a paint-by-numbers manner, like they’ve done a trillion times and will again for another trillion. The strange part was what was happening on the big screen behind them. While they were singing the words to this endorphin-pumping anthem like “’cause the best is yet to come!” the crowd was treated to statistics indicating rapid increases in soil erosion and child murders. Yay! No more food, and mommy’s killing us…so let’s all rock out to Def Leppard while there’s still time! Absolutely strange. If they were attempting to show a sense of social awareness, they failed miserably.
Euphoria, released in 1992, is by far the lamest and most contrived album in their entire catalogue – and the single Let’s Get Rocked is by far the worst song on it. This is probably why it was such a big hit. Mediocrity defined. Again, possibly due to some weird cosmic anomaly, this went over like gangbusters for the full house.
Pour Some Sugar On Me? What can you say about Def’s most popular song? The audience loved it – obviously. Played with the same lack of panache as the rest of the show, mind you, but hey, when you are paying $75-$150 to listen to a live greatest hits CD by a band waaaaaaayyyy past its prime, it’s pretty clear quality performance is not at the top of your list. Maybe fans could pool their cash to get someone to invent a time machine so they could all go back to 1983 and see them when they were actually worth seeing.
This show was a perfect example of why these heritage acts are both so appealing and so irrelevant at the same time. Artistically, bands like this are a spent force, but this isn’t art. It’s just a bottomless miasma of nostalgia that never seems to end. The public has an insatiable desire for this stuff – and it’s killing the music industry. If people are only interested in the songs of yesterday, who’s listening to the contemporary acts of today?
In the years to come, no matter how obvious it is that Def Leppard and their classic rock peers are whittling away before our eyes, no matter how past their due dates they are, people will continue to pay to see them, because, well, it’s just something you do. Kind of like voting PC at election time.
By Gig City 2015.
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