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Monday, 4th May 2015
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Ottawa, ON - Media Reviews

Def Leppard sends Lansdowne into hysteria By Jon Willing

Def Leppard stress-tested the new steel in the rafters of TD Place arena Monday night.

The British rockers didn’t blow the roof off but they surely sent quivers through the girders.

Approaching 40 years of rock, Def Leppard can still deliver the harmonies and guitar riffs that made its music accessible to both pop and rock fans through the 1980s and 1990s.

There was a certain vintage to the fans streaming into Lansdowne Park. Nostalgia is a strong magnet, especially in music.

Pour Some Sugar On Me screamed out of ghetto blasters in their childhood bedrooms. They got to first base while Two Steps Behind played in their beat-up Chevettes. They set Let’s Get Rocked on repeat in the locker room before the county championship.

Today, their best friends butcher Hysteria on karaoke night.

It was TD Place’s first bonafide hard rock show after throwing open the doors again to concerts last fall after the Lansdowne redevelopment. Ottawa has back that key mid-sized concert venue for major bands which have trouble filling the Canadian Tire Centre.

It was perfect for Def Leppard.

Let there be no mistake: The five-piece, while not as nimble on stage, still kills it musically.

This is a band that, thankfully, doesn’t pander to its local fans by sporting Senators or RedBlacks jerseys during the gig.

A shirtless and cut Phil Collen — the He-Man of guitarists — was already dripping sweat when the curtain dropped on Rock! Rock! to open the show in the sweltering amphitheatre setup. He traded ear-splitting licks with Vivian Campbell, whose sparkled, cherry red Gibson popped from his black threads.

It wasn’t until Rick Savage’s head-bobbing bass solo in the middle of the set, leading into to a terrific cover of David Essex’s Rock On, that the front rows rose from their keisters.

Lead singer Joe Elliott hauled an acoustic guitar to the mini catwalk for a solo Two Steps Behind, dedicating the ballad to ailing Canadian songstress Joni Mitchell.

The instrumental Switch 625 ended with Rick Allan slaying a drum solo, ending with his only arm raised in the air as he cackled into a video camera.

The smartly backloaded set list, with Hysteria, Let’s Get Rocked and Pour Some Sugar On Me slotted in the final leg, ended the show in a frenzy. Rock of Ages and Photograph filed the encore.

One of those bands that’s always touring, Def Leppard has one more Canadian date in London Tuesday before crisscrossing the Atlantic Ocean for the rest of the year. Elliott, who wiped the sweat from his face during guitar solos, noted it was winter when the group started the Canadian tour, and now it somehow felt like summer.

Ottawa fans longing for Def Leppard in the flesh have aged another six years since the last prospect of seeing their rock heroes. The band’s last concert in 2009 was cancelled.

They’ll be back again.

Elliott said so.

“There will be a next time,” he told the roaring crowd before leaving. “Don’t forget us and we don’t forget you.”

By Ottawa Sun 2015.

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