Newark, NJ - Media Review Quotes

By Bobby Oliver

In dress, the crowd of longtime fans and families certainly seemed to pledge greater allegiance to Def Leppard, who played the first of matching 90-minute sets and rattled off its long list of mega-hits, largely from the “Pyromania” and “Hysteria” records. If you saw the band on its last co-headlining tour with Journey, back in 2006, you’d notice little change in personnel — Def Leppard has been Joe Elliott, Phil Collen (guitar), Rick Savage (bass) and Rick Allen (drums) since 1982, and they added “new guy” guitarist Vivian Campbell in 1992.

Sonically the exuberant Brits are still reasonably tight, with Collen and Campbell trading solo hair-metal shreds, Allen pounding away on his custom kit, and Elliott doling the vocals, which struggled a bit on the higher register — as he has since at least that last Journey tour — but was generally passable and energizing, especially with Collen, Campbell and Savage all mic’d up to back him.

“We’re going to take you back in our little time machine,” Elliott, 58, said before “Foolin’,” in a moment down on the stage’s center thrust, away from his microphone stand clad with Union Jack scarves.

All the expected hits were run through, from party starters “Rocket” and “Animal” to the moodier “Love Bites” and “Bringin’ On The Heartbreak.” The 1995 single “When Love And Hate Collide” is a strong and affecting later track, and the band did roll out one newbie: a bass-heavy jammer called “Man Enough,” from its 2015 self-titled album you definitely didn’t know existed until right now.

The lasers often flashed across the arena, old photos and videos of the band flashed on the big screen behind them during “Hysteria,” the guys were affable though probably a little bored, and of course, everyone danced for “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” If you don’t shimmy at least a little bit to “Sugar,” you’re not living your best life.

By NJ.com 2018.

Read the full review/1 photo at - nj.com

Back

share this page: