You can trust Louder
One of the genuine hot ticket items on Record Store Day, Def Leppard’s club show at Sheffield’s Leadmill now has a less selective audience as it becomes available on everything from Blu-ray to digital video and, yes, even vinyl. Which might take the sheen off for Leppard fans who queued for hours to grab their copy on RSD.
It’s a minor quibble though, as this blistering set of old and new material deserves to be heard.
Joe Elliott plays it like he’s headlining Madison Square Garden, and all the slick Leppard bells and whistles are in place for a showboating gig that includes everything from Too Late For Love, to Let It Go and even a punchy Mirror Mirror.
A few weeks later, they’d be headlining Wembley Stadium as part of their tour proper, but this club show reminds us how and why they got there.
Philip Wilding is a novelist, journalist, scriptwriter, biographer and radio producer. As a young journalist he criss-crossed most of the United States with bands like Motley Crue, Kiss and Poison (think the Almost Famous movie but with more hairspray). More latterly, he’s sat down to chat with bands like the slightly more erudite Manic Street Preachers, Afghan Whigs, Rush and Marillion.