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By Jason MacNeil

While most of the songs were supported by strong backing vocals, Elliott isn't as powerful as his early days. However, he still managed to make the most of things with Excitable. Def Leppard knows that they were at their height in the '80s and most of the night kept going back to 1981's High 'N' Dry, 1983's Pyromania and especially mining tunes from 1987's Hysteria album. The first true highlight was following the opening guitar notes of Foolin', a moody track that has a big beefy chorus.

"Thank you very much! Merci beaucoup!" Elliott said, choosing to ignore some of the boos emanating from the crowd for the second salutation. The boos turned to cheers, shrieks and fist pumps for the plodding rocker Mirror, Mirror (Look Into My Eyes) and the ensuing Another Hit and Run.

Things took a different turn when the electric guitars were swapped for acoustic ones for a brief two-song quasi-unplugged set that featured all but drummer Rick Allen near the lip of the catwalk stage. "From back there we can see you, from out here we can hear you," Elliott said prior to the campfire ballad Two Steps Behind and a decent rendition of Bringin' On the Heartbreak.

BAND TOOK OVER - Elliott took the occasional rest as the band fleshed out some tunes, with the instrumental Switch 625 coming across quite nicely. Both barechested, Campbell and Collen doled out one strong riff after another while the one-armed Allen was equally up to the challenge.

If there was a lowlight to the evening though, it was perhaps during another filler moment when bassist Rick Savage took it upon himself to dole out a bass solo. Only a few bass players can get away with such a feat, and Savage is not one of them. Nonetheless, Def Leppard rounded out the evening with Elliott sounding much better for the mid-tempo pop track Hysteria. It was also a decent primer for the homestretch of hits that had the crowd, filling nearly two-thirds of the seats and a large portion of the lawn, drowning out the band during Armageddon It, Photograph and perhaps their biggest hit, Pour Some Sugar on Me.

By The Toronto Sun 2007.

Read the full review at - torontosun.com

By Sheena Lyonnais

And exactly why they did not play a single song off that release. Instead, Def leppard performed the songs that made them big 20-something years ago. Classics such as "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Photograph" were saved for last, but the entire set was laced with older songs clearly geared towards the original fans. The Rolling Stones do this too. AC/DC follows suit. Kim Mitchell rocked those Patio Lanterns. 80s bands play 80s songs because those are the songs the old fans have built their memories around. Bands like this are still popular today because in a sense they're riding the coattails of their own past success and enlightening those who helped create it by doing just so. Attending a Def Leppard concert is like stumbling across a sixth grade field trip to the zoo. Everyone is ecstatic over the zebras even though they've all seen the zebras before and even though the zebras are still horse-like and striped. Except now the sixth graders are actually in their 40s, many of them still have mullets and most of them could drink you under the table.

Yet the beauty of these concerts is how the age factor vanishes into oblivion. Original fans are in attendance, but so are their kids who range in age from six to 26. Complete strangers bond over faded t-shirts and overpriced alcohol. Everyone becomes the same. And the band, especially from the 400s where I was sitting, looks exactly how they did back in the day. Suffocating white pants, British flags and messy, teased hair straight from 1984. And that is exactly the way it should be.

The show was also just exciting to watch. It was packed full of guitar solos, bass solos, build ups and surprises. Although Def Leppard incorporate lights, minor pyrotechnics and a huge on-stage screen, it was their actual performance that really shown through. Disappointing though was the absence of songs from the album Slang. Yeah I love me some sugar, but I loooooove me some Slang! Although I would have highly enjoyed seeing some of these songs, I was overall incredibly blown away, once again, by the magnitude and allure of Def Leppard's shows. They have something a lot of bands don't have these days and that's character. You truly haven't seen rock and roll until you've seen Def Leppard live.

They said they'd be back next year. Mark it in your calendar.

By Toronto Music Scene 2007.

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