Sunday, 15th May 2022
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DEF LEPPARD's JOE ELLIOTT On Really Emotional Donington 1986 Show

Def Leppard 2022. Def Leppard 2022

Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott appeared on My Planet Rocks earlier tonight to talk about the Donington Download Festival.

'Diamond Star Halos' is the band's 12th studio album.

As announced on 17th March it will be released on Friday 27th May 2022.

Joe appeared as a guest on My Planet Rocks earlier tonight.

The special show was hosted by Download Festival organiser Andy Copping ahead of this year's festival.

Also appearing were Danny Bowes of Thunder and Toby Jepson of Wayward Sons (also both Planet Rock DJs).

Joe talked about attending the first Monsters Of Rock festival in 1980, Reading Festival 1980 and Donington 1986.

Listen to the full one hour show show at Planet Rock with Joe's part starting at 42 minutes.

Two Def Leppard songs were also played.


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

Visit the Album News section for more news on new music (based on band member quotes).


My Planet Rocks - May 2022 Press

My Planet Rocks: Download Festival Special

Download Festival’s very own Andy Copping spends an hour chatting to Danny Bowes, Toby Jepson and Joe Elliott about this year’s Download Festival and memories of Donnington festivals gone by.


Joe Elliott/My Planet Rocks - May 2022 Quotes

Monsters Of Rock 1980 Memories

Andy - "Well hello Joe. It's me Andy Copping. Thank you for having me."

Joe Elliott - "Good to see you again bud."

Andy - "Yeah good to see you. So I'm kind of here talking about Download, Donnington, Monsters Of Rock. You actually came to the very first Monsters Of Rock What are your memories of that first Monsters Of Rock."

Joe Elliott - "My memories are it was 1980 right. And we;d just finished touring with Priest and it may well have been Glenn or Kenny that invited us down. I can't remember, but we just went to hang."

"You know we just thought oh this is great. We're a young band, we were new and you know. So it was just a great Saturday afternoon hanging out with people whose records we'd been buying four years previously."

"And now we were rubbing shoulders with them. It was pretty surreal to be quite honest."


Reading Festival 1980

Andy - "Yeah it must have been a big deal 'cause I think it was really, obviously there was Reading in '80 when you guys played and..."

Joe Elliott - "Yeah that was a full rock thing. I mean it was UFO, and it was Girl and Ozzy cancelled and Slade stood in for him much to our - they destroyed us 'cause they went on just before we did and played like 45 minutes of Number One hits. Including Merry Christmas in the middle of August."

Andy - "I know. It was bizarre and listen I personally felt you guys went over really really well. I was a Leppard fan of course. But I know some part of the press was not necessarily kind. I think they were obviously favouring how great Slade had done. For me you guys came out and played a blinder for me."

Joe Elliott - "Well I'm glad you actually noticed that Andy because I've been saying this and people think it's just stupid bravado. But I've been saying you know for all this negativity that one guy writes in Sounds. What I was seeing from the stage was not negative at all."

Joe Elliott - "And if you listen back to the BBC recording that was broadcast. That we've since put out on our box set. And you can tell by listening to it that we actually we went down really well."

Joe Elliott - "So I never had a problem with Reading."


Monsters Of Rock 1986

Andy - "So you mentioned earlier there Joe when you guys played at Monsters Of Rock 1986. Which was obviously a big deal all the way round. I know it's been massively well documented regarding Rick Allen and the fact that that was the first show back. And Ozzy allegedly said in the press it was gonna be a circus, but what an absolute major major result. Talk to me about that. About 1986."

Joe Elliott - "Well 1986 was a strange time for us 'cause we'd started writing Hysteria in the winter of '84. But by the summer of '86 we were getting cabin fever big time."

Joe Elliott - "We'd been in the studio probably longer than Fleetwood Mac had been doing Rumours you know. And so Peter Mensch said tp us, he says there's some shows if you want."

Joe Elliott - "And by this time Rick had. Obviously he'd had his accident. He'd recuperated and he'd learned to play and he was kind of chomping at the bit a little bit to see what he could do."

Joe Elliott - "So we hastily arranged some warm up shows all over Ireland in the middle of nowhere like Waterford and Ballybunion and stuff. And we went on and, you know, the love for the band."

Joe Elliott - "I mean I know you said about what Ozzy said. And I remember reading about that. And in fairness to Ozzy he's since apologised profusely for saying it and realising it was not a cool thing to say."

Joe Elliott - "We had a second drummer in Jeff Rich who was moonlighting from Status Quo."


Two Drummers/Donington 1986

Andy - "Did Jeff play drums for the whole thing. How did it work. Did Rick do some. Did he do some. Was there a time when they were drumming together?."

Joe Elliott - "They were drumming together on every song. It was like the Glitter Band or The Allman Brothers. Until we got to the third gig."

Joe Elliott - "And the stage just wasn't big enough for two kits. Jeff said well I tell you what. I'll just got stand out front and watch. And Iill let you know how it is."

Joe Elliott - "So we did the gig with just Rick and Jeff came into the dressing room after that show. It's legend in Leppard speak. He just said well 'I guess I'm going home tomorrow.'"

Joe Elliott - "We knew that by the time we got to do the Monsters Of Rock shows he was gonna be fine."

Joe Elliott - "And the crowd were really focused on Rick Allen. You could actually tell when you stood at the front of the stage, they're trying to kind of peer past me. And through his cymbals to see how the hell is he doing that you know. And we'd made this pact to not introduce him."

Joe Elliott - "We didn't wanna milk it. We didn't wanna make it some kind of novelty thing. About forty minutes into the set I went over to Phil and I said I really can't not say anything, because you could tell there's an energy there."

Joe Elliott - "It just, it needed acknowledging. We're absolutely gung ho that we weren't going to. I don't remember which song it was, but I did introduce Rick."

Joe Elliott - "And I've said many times in the past the volume of the acceptance of the situation of him and the success and this triumph over tragedy all kind of in this 10 second spot right there in the middle of our set."

Joe Elliott - "When I said ladies and gentleman please make a lot of noise for Rick Allen. It was like a hairdryer. You could feel it never mind hear it. It was like literally moved the air."

Joe Elliott - "It was really really emotional and you know it just felt really good to think that, you know, for this backlash that there had been previously supposedly the backlash we'd had. All of a sudden it was just snuffed out in that one second you know."

Andy - "Well listen Joe. It's been great talking with you. Thank you for being part of Donington right throughout the years. And I wanna play a Def Leppard track now which was at the time was a B-Side. And I absolutely loved it when it came out. This is Def Leppard and Good Morning Freedom."


My Planet Rocks May 2022 - Playlist

  • 01 - Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast
  • 02 - Thunder - Backstreet Symphony (Donington 1990)
  • 03 - Metallica - Enter Sandman
  • 04 - KISS - Lick It Up
  • 05 - Little Angels - Don't Prey For Me
  • 06 - Steel Panther - The Burden Of Being Wonderful
  • 07 - Def Leppard - Madicine Man (Reading 1980)
  • 08 - Def Leppard - Good Morning Freedom (Oxford 1980)

Listen to the full show at the Planet Rock website.


Def Leppard 2022.

Def Leppard / Latest Release


Def Leppard / Latest Tour

Def Leppard World Tour 2022


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