Rocket! Ye-eah!

It all started because of My Name Is Earl. If you have watched the show you may already know that one of Earl's personality traits is his love of Def Leppard. In one episode he punctuates a particularly defensive soliloquy with 'You can all pour some sugar on that!'. At that moment, something stirred within me. Something from the deep, dark recesses of time. The 80's. It all came flooding back to me after being forgotten for so long.

As it turns out, I love Def Leppard.

I expressed my rediscovered love by buying a copy of 'Hysteria' on special at JB Hi Fi. My original copy is on vinyl, and well-worn I can assure you. As MBH says, Hysteria has been on high rotation in the car for at least a year and he groans a weary groan when he hears the first bars of 'Women'. Poor thing. But it was his idea to get tickets for their concert all those months ago when he saw they were touring oz. At first I thought it was taking the 80's nostalgia thing a bit too far at 99 bucks a ticket, but I changed my mind pretty quick which is why we found ourselves at the Acer Arena on Wednesday, 5th November on a mild summery evening.

The Galvatrons were up first and not bad, although they were dwarfed by all the amps and speakers on stage for Cheap Trick and Def Leppard. Cheap Trick were up next and it seems they still know how to crank it after all these years. I sang along heartily to 'The Flame' and MBH seemed to know the rest of their stuff quite well.

By the time Cheap Trick had wound up their set I felt like we'd already seen a full show, but I was grossly mistaken. When DL hit the stage everyone went mad. They played Rocket first, then Animal, followed by some songs from their new album (a brave choice). The sound was pumping, the screens alternated between rockin' clips and close ups of the performers. And they're not in back shape for 50 year old men. My goodness, that lead guitarist is as buff and well built as a 20 year old lumber jack!

I looked the lead guitarist up on Wiki when we got home and I can now tell you that his name is Phil Collen, he's from East London, has been with the band since 1982 and he's a vegetarian. He's even done some work for PETA. Who knew I could love them even more?!?

I only got a couple of photos 'cause my mobile was running out of batteries and I had hoped to video 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' but I only got a few seconds before the batteries completely died. Not to worry, it was a small glitch in an otherwise perfect evening. I danced and sang my way through PSSOM and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Now that I have seen Def Leppard in concert I can unashamedly say 3 things:

(1) They rock.

(2) I own a Def Leppard t-shirt.

(3) The drummer really does only have one arm.

Come back soon guys!