Korn‘s Jonathan Davis was so excited by ORGY that he created his own record label …
Bold, bright, beautiful and energetic; just a few choice words you could use to describe seeing one of the most pivotal rock bands of the 1980s live in concert—Def Leppard.
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The news broke last week that the English rock icons will hit up Australia in November as part of their colossal world tour, playing their classic album Hysteria in its entirety as well as some choice cuts from their 40-year tenure. In order for Def Leppard to really bring the riot, guitarist Vivian Campbell says the band have got to get choosy in forming a set that will live up to their reputation as dazzling live performers. “It’s always been an issue with the band, which songs to play, which not to. It’s a nice problem to have.
“We’re almost handicapped by the band’s own success and that we have genuinely so many songs to choose from and when we play, the majority of [the] hits, they have to be there. We have a challenge every time we go on tour – we wanna be a little bit different from previous tours so we have to go deep and pull out more obscure album cuts.”
In just a couple of weeks, Campbell and his bandmates will be in rehearsals for the North American stretch of their world tour, and what Def Leppard have set out to do to celebrate Hysteria, means the production they take on the road isn’t exactly going to be modest–it’s going to be magical. “There’s a musical side that we do in a much more intimate environment when we rehearse as a band,” explains Campbell, “Then we take it to a bigger stage and do a full rehearsal with lights, hydraulics, and video components. We will actually be rehearsing for the North American tour which will be more of a conventional tour–we’re going on tour with Journey. That’ll be slightly different than what we’ll perform in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.”
There’s a lot of great audiences around the world and the warmth of an audience can sometimes, from one night to the next, make a different city become home
[ Vivian Campbell ]
Campbell continues, laying down details of his recent rehearsals with founding member and drummer Rick Allen and guitarist Phil Collen, dishing details of the tracks they’re hoping to take out on the road and stirring up excitement in this humble writer. “A couple of weeks ago in LA we had initial rehearsals for the Hysteria show, to start playing some of those songs that we don’t normally play.
“Don’t Shoot Shotgun, Run Riot, Excitable, Armageddon It, Love And Affection. The title track is always part of a show, Sugar [Pour Some Sugar On Me], there’s never been a Def Leppard show where we haven’t played Pour Some Sugar! The majority of the album’s songs we know but some of them are very nuanced and we don’t play them that often, so we touched on those.”
In Sheffield England, 1977, three school chums came together to make music as part of the new wave of British heavy metal. Three years later they had their breakthrough with a little album called On Through The Night, not knowing that some 40 years after their inception they would have created music that is not only timeless, but translates the world over. A universal language sits well with Def Leppard.
When Def Leppard hit up the UK on tour, it won’t be any sort of homecoming. Campbell describes this world tour as a celebration of global unity, something he feels the band’s members represent. “With Leppard there’s always more than one home show. The band’s historical home is Sheffield in the north of England, and Joe [vocalist Joe Elliott], Sav [bassist Rick Savage] and Rick [Allen] hail from there, so for them, they’re very much home shows.
“My home show is Belfast–now, Belfast is an incredible rock city, and it’s one of the world’s best rock audiences so it’s always a pleasure to play there. You know, Phil [Collen] is a Londoner so when we play Wembley Arena that’s his home show … but at the same time, we’re such a global band, Phil and Rick and I have lived in LA for decades so that in a way is a home show. Joe has lived in Dublin since the 80s so that’s a home show for him.
“Def Leppard is a very international band and we’ve been on the international stage for so many years, a lot of places feel like home. There’s a lot of great audiences around the world and the warmth of an audience can sometimes, from one night to the next, make a different city become home.”
Catch Def Leppard with special guests Scorpions at the following dates:
Friday 2 November // Perth Arena // Perth
Sunday 4 November // Adelaide Entertainment Centre // Adelaide
Tuesday 6 November // Brisbane Entertainment Centre // Brisbane
Thursday 8 November // Rod Laver Arena // Melbourne
Saturday 10 November // ICC Sydney Theatre // Sydney
