The night Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris joined Def Leppard

A composite photograph of Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris and Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott — (Image credit: Chris Walter/WireImageMick Hutson/Redferns)

Iron Maiden and Def Leppard were the two biggest bands to come out of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, but they took very different career paths.

While Maiden found their sound earlier and spent years building on it, becoming one of the most venerated metal bands of the last 45 years, Def Leppard soon shook off their NWOBHM roots, with radio-friendly albums such as 1983’s multi-million selling Pyromania and 1987’s equally huge Hysteria turning them into superstars in the US. Amusingly, Leppard frontman Joe Elliott has spent much of the last 45 years distancing himself from the NWOBHM movement and heavy metal in general, calling it “a silly, silly term.”

That didn’t stop Elliott and the rest of Def Leppard inviting Maiden bassist Steve Harris onstage at one memorable gig in the 80s. This momentous meeting of minds took place on October 26, 1988 at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon, the penultimate date of Leppard’s ground-breaking, in-the-round Hysteria tour.

Maiden were between legs of their own tour in support of that year’s Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son album, though why Harris was in Portland that day isn’t clear. Still, he joined Def Leppard at the end of their set for a Creedence Clearwater Revival cover, using Leppard four-stringer Rick ‘Sav’ Savage’s trademark ‘scarab’ bass for this impromptu jam.

“I remember back in the 80s Steve Harris from Iron Maiden came to one of our shows and we dragged him up on stage to do this,” said Joe Elliott in 2015. “We used to encore with Travellin’ Band by Creedence Clearwater Revival. And he took the bass and Sav played rhythm guitar and we got Steve Harris to get up and play this song.

"And when we came off he went, ‘I’ve never seen so many women in my life,’” Elliott continued. ‘[I said, ‘So you don't get ’em at Maiden gigs?’ He goes, ‘No, we just get men.’ We’ve always had women at our gigs. Always have you know… It’s music that women find sexy I suppose.”

Sadly, no audio or video recording exists of this one-off (ex-)NWOBHM mash-up. However, a recording does exist of Leppard playing Travellin’ Band with another guest, Queen guitarist Brian May, four years earlier on the Pyromania tour. Which is better than nothing.

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