Def Leppard News - DEF LEPPARD's PHIL COLLEN On His Dream Tour/First Concert

Wednesday, 13th June 2018

DEF LEPPARD's PHIL COLLEN On His Dream Tour/First Concert

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Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen was interviewed in Milwaukee, WI in late February and more video footage is available.

Phil spoke to Digital Tour Bus before the final show of the G3 Tour.

The third and fourth videos from the chat have now been posted.

Phil talked about seeing his first show, Deep Purple in London and what his dream tour would be.

Deep Purple opened the Brixton Sundown venue on 30th September 1972. It is currently known as the Brixton Academy and was played by Def Leppard in February 2003 on the X/Ten tour.

Phil always playing on the left side of the stage (right side for the audience) is also due to him standing in front of guitarist Ritchie Blackmore at this show on the same side.

The first longer interview was already posted in April with Phil giving a backstage tour and revealing more about the 2018 Hysteria tour plans.

Followed by a second one in May with Phil giving his Tour Tips.

Watch both videos below.

Visit the Tour News section. For more news on future tour plans.

Digital Tour Bus - Phil Collen Interview Quotes

His Dream Tour

"Hi I'm Phil Collen. A dream tour?. Actually I saw this posted once and it was B.B. King, James Brown, Chuck Berry. Jimi Hendrix with either the Isley Brothers or Little Richard. And it was all on the same show, it was the same show. It wasn't like they played at this theatre. This was on the same night. So all of that stuff was basically Delta Blues turned into Chicago Blues turned into soul, funk, jazz, blues rock. Rock and roll and that would've been wonderful to be part of that inception of kind of what we do now in popular music. You know it was it going off into different tangents already."

"So I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall or even played with some of them, those guys. You know I love James Brown, Jimi Hendrix is my favourite guitarist and all of that stuff. Yeah B.B. King on there. It's like, just a dream and it was a reality. It was a real poster somewhere in...I don't even know where it was or what the date was but pretty crazy."

His First Concert

"Hi I'm Phil Collen of Def Leppard and Delta Deep. My first concert experience. The reason I actually play guitar today. My cousin Dave took me to see Deep Purple. He was two years older than me. He actually got me into like Zeppelin, Purple, Hendrix, Pink Floyd and that. I was into David Bowie and just everything, you know, I'm from London so we were blessed. You know you'd have the Stones, The Who, The Kinks. All these great London bands and so much happening there. But the Brixton Academy used to be called the Brixton Sundown and I was 14. We got these tickets. I guess our parents paid for it. And we went down there. Front row to see Deep Purple on the Machinehead tour. That's the album with Smoke On The Water and Highway Star."

"It blew my mind. I was like Ritchie Blackmore's playing all this stuff. We actually do that song in the G3 thing. Highway Star which is pretty crazy. But that moment just changed everything. I pestered my Mum and Dad for a guitar. I finally got one two years later. My Dad was a truck driver. And that was it and that's all I did was just play guitar and write songs and try and sing and all that stuff from that point onwards."