Def Leppard / Cheap Trick - Thursday 6th December - O2 Arena

A decent double bill at the O2. Cheap Trick were as fun as I remembered. Surely no other band chucks out as many plectrums to their audience! I really enjoyed the cover of The Move's California Man.

Def Leppard were pretty solid. Whilst the Hysteria album - showcased here in it's entirety - is largely excellent, there are 3 or 4 dud tracks that don't really warrant a play, so there was a slight feeling of "it was good, but could have been even better". But let's also say the thing that has to be said. "Phil Collen. Enough is enough. You are 2 days short of your 61st birthday. Put your shirt on - no one comes to Def Leppard to see your bare torso!"

Setlist - Cheap Trick
Hello There
Big Eyes
California Man 
If You Want My Love
The Flame
I Want You to Want Me
Dream Police
Never Had a Lot to Lose
Surrender
Goodnight Now

Setlist - Def Leppard
Women
Rocket
Animal
Love Bites
Pour Some Sugar on Me
Armageddon It
Gods of War
Don't Shoot Shotgun
Run Riot
Hysteria (with "Heroes" snippet)
Excitable
Love and Affection
+
Wasted
When Love and Hate Collide
Let's Get Rocked
Rock of Ages
Photograph

Def Leppard - Sunday 25th March - Royal Albert Hall

Brief Review: More TCT at the Royal Albert Hall and this time we are in the affordable seats for Def Leppard. It's their debut at this venue and they are on good form. Lot's of chat from Joe Elliott and Phil Collen even managed to keep his shirt on! (RAH rules?). Seeing them at the O2 later in the year and looking forward to that.

Setlist
Won't Get Fooled Again (end only)
[after joining the Who studio audio intro tape]
Let's Go
Animal
Let It Go
Dangerous
Foolin'
Love Bites
Armageddon It
Rock On
Man Enough
When Love and Hate Collide
Rocket
Bringin' on the Heartbreak
Switch 625
Hysteria (with "Heroes" snippet in the end)
Let's Get Rocked
Pour Some Sugar on Me
+
Rock of Ages
Photograph

Teenage Cancer Trust Website

Def Leppard - Friday 18th December - Wembley Arena

A double (or even triple) header with Def Leppard co-headlining again with Whitesnake, this time with the Black Star Riders (ex Thin Lizzy) as support.

We arrived part way through the Black Star Riders set - which sounded pretty good. Ricky Warwick's voice is stunningly similar to Phil Lynott's and the sing-a-long Whiskey In The Jar at the end was sung enthusiastically by the filling arena.

Whitesnake were up next. Supporting their latest album of Deep Purple covers, the setlist included many from that. Not being a big Deep Purple fan, many of these sounded pretty dull to me. David Coverdale's voice however seemed to be back in form and the final 4 songs of the set went down well.

Def Leppard opted to start with a song from their rather good new album and that set the scene nicely. Joe Elliott's vocals were strong and not even the site of a topless (from the start) Phil Collen could detract from the musicianship. I suspect hard-core Def Leppard fans could complain about a fairly static setlist, but for the casual fan (ie me) this hit the right balance.

Setlist - Def Leppard
Let's Go
Animal
Undefeated
Dangerous
Love Bites
Armageddon It
Rock On 
Two Steps Behind (acoustic Joe Elliott)
Rocket
When Love and Hate Collide
Switch 625
Hysteria
Let's Get Rocked
Pour Some Sugar On Me
+
Rock Of Ages
Photograph

Setlist - Whitesnake
Burn 
Bad Boys
Love Ain't No Stranger
The Gypsy 
Give Me All Your Love
Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City 
Mistreated 
You Fool No One 
Drum Solo
Soldier Of Fortune 
Is This Love
Fool For Your Loving
Here I Go Again
Still Of The Night

Setlist - Black Star Riders
All Hell Breaks Loose
Are You Ready
The Killer Instinct
Jailbreak 
Bound For Glory
Kingdom Of The Lost
Finest Hour
Whiskey In The Jar 

Def Leppard - Wednesday 14th December - Wembley Arena

Off to North London to the "hangar" for a rock "double-header". Skipping support "Steel Panther", we arrived to find Motley Crue in full swing. Taking a safe view from miles away, we were "treated" to an expletive filled set of actually quite fun material.

Regular readers will know how much I detest drum solos, but even I will admit that Tommy Lee's rollercoaster "wheel" was entertaining. I enjoyed a snippet of the "Leader's" Rock And Roll Part 2 before "Smoking in The Boys Room" and of course, "Girls Girls Girls" was a massive singalong. Quite whether I wanted to be called a "MotherF****r" so often I'm not so sure. It didn't really add much and we stopped counting at around 100 profanities.

Excellent timing of Beer runs and Gents visits meant we moved forward about 80 yards for Def Leppard. They were solid and in good touch with the audience. As it was the last night of the tour, I'd expected a guest or 2 (Brian May, Ian Hunter?), but no such luck.

Richard was only half believing when I pointed out that the version of "Bringing On The Heartache" was not as heavy as the other rendition I'd heard in the same venue - by Mariah Carey !!

Setlist
Undefeated
Rocket
Action
Let It Go
C'mon C'mon
When Love and Hate Collide
Women
Two Steps Behind (Acoustic)
Bringin' on the Heartbreak
Switch 625
Hysteria
Animal
Armageddon It
Photograph
Pour Some Sugar on Me
+
Love Bites
Let's Get Rocked

Whitesnake / Def Leppard - Thursday 26th June - Wembley Arena

The evening started with a meet at The Globe (Baker St Tube) where we met a couple of other friends purely by chance. I say by chance, every time I go to The Globe I seem to bump into someone I know. It is one of the most "touristy" pubs in London and one with poor service, so who knows what our guests think of that.

We decided to skip the first support act and have a couple of beers in town. This nearly cost us as the journey to Wembley was slow and there was a long queue to get in!

Luckily, we got in just in time for the start of Whitesnake and met up with some more friends about half way back. Unusually for Wembley, the whole of the floor was standing, so there was a reasonable amount of room. Having enjoyed Whitesnake a year or 2 back at Hammersmith, I wasn't as keen this time. The vocals seemed a bit off key and Mr Coverdale's constant swearing (I lost the spread bet with Richard on going for "under 25 F***ks during the show") became a bit tiresome. Still, the timeless classics of "Is This Love", "Here I Go Again" and "Ain't No Love.." went down well.

By contrast Def Leppard, who I'd been disappointed with last time, were excellent. Their setlist was spot on and the energy and guitars spot on too. They were backed by an impressive backdrop which didn't detract from the performance which, of course, has all the sing-a-long anthems you'd expect. All in all, excellent!

Def Leppard - Hammersmith Apollo - Sunday 18th June

Damn! A day after we got tickets for this, the Who announced a warm-up at the Brighton Centre. Bit of a dilemma, but we'd paid for these tickets, I've not seen a full Def Leppard show before and I've seen the Who lots of times (and am going next month). So did we make the right choice? 

Having discovered that OSP (bar in Fulham Palace Road) have outrageously stopped doing draft Budwar (orders from the brewery!), we got in fairly early and saw the main support, Cheap Trick. They were good fun - the guitarist changed his guitar after EVERY song (!) and it was surprising how many of the songs were recognisable. I may well be tempted to see them on their own. 

Got down to the front for Def Leppard, a couple of yards back from the barrier, left-speaker. They opened with "Hell Raiser" and continued with a reasonable setlist. unfortunately, bar "Hanging On The Telephone" (which I liked, and the rest of the audience seemed not to), the covers they chose of their latest album ("Yeah!") were the weaker ones IMHO. 

The fairly brief set concluded with the expected hits, Rocket, Animal, Pour Some Sugar etc, but for me there was something lacking. It was all very professional and well played (although Joe's voice sounded a bit ropey in places), but there was a general lack of spark or excitement. All in all, not bad, but given the same choice next time, I'm off to the Who!

Setlist

Hell Raiser

Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop)

Let's Get Rocked

Make Love Like a Man

Promises

Hysteria

Let It Go

20th Century Boy

Hanging on the Telephone

Bass Solo

Rock On

Rocket

Photograph

Armageddon It

Animal

Rock of Ages

+

When Love and Hate Collide

Pour Some Sugar on Me