Def Leppard, Cheap Trick @BEC, Brisbane (08/11/2008)

Fri 21st Nov, 2008 in Gig Reviews

All blond locks and time-roughened good looks, Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott is hitting note after unforgettable falsetto note on the chorus of slow-burn classic Love Bites. “Love bites. Love bleeds. It’s bringing me to my knees.” Behind me, one balding middle-aged man dances awkwardly in his seat. A mirror of Elliott’s passion, his face screwed up in unself-conscious ecstasy, he sings every word, obviously having the time of his life. He’s not the only one – some thirteen thousand other Brisbane fans are hanging, enraptured, on every riff, word and drumbeat.

It feels odd that my engrossment in this musical nostalgia trip is not nearly as complete. Def Leppard was one of the few bands I completely idolised during high school. While everyone was busy falling in love with Pour Some Sugar On Me on the radio, I was repeatedly flogging Pyromania, On Through The Night and High ‘n’ Dry through the tape deck.

Nevertheless, my thoughts flicker to the defiant words that, not four songs earlier, concluded a disorienting 60-second audio-visual career flashback prefacing their set: “That was then. This is now.”.

Truth? Or blind bravado and self-deception?

Early on, US rock veterans Cheap Trick illustrate that hurling armfuls of guitar plectrums into the crowd is no substitute for building genuine crowd rapport.

It’s only when Robin Zander launches into classic power ballad The Flame that the band finally seem to forge a connection with the crowd. The hits are there, but Rick Nielsen’s five-neck guitar shtick on Goodnight personifies the performance – cheap tricks at the expense of honest punk attitude.

There’s nothing spring chicken about Def Leppard anymore. Still, the crowd they’ve drawn tonight leans distinctly to the youthful end of the spectrum while the prevalence of couples testifies to the band’s reputation as “the metallers you can take home to your mum”. Equally surprising, the BEC is packed to the rafters. If there are three vacant seats, it’s because two punters are dawdling in the bar.

And, as Joe Elliott, Phil Collen, Vivian Campbell, Rick Savage and Rick Allen bounce onto stage as energetic and pin-up wholesome as a boyband, the unreservedly enthusiastic welcome that ripples around the venue is noisy testimony to Def Leppard’s enduring popularity.

The ensuing set reads like a greatest hits collection – heavy on smash album Hysteria and its equally popular but beefier older brother, Pyromania. It’s simultaneously the strength and the weakness of the performance.

Because, whichever way you dice it, the glam pop-metal bombast of Rocket, Animal, Rock Of Ages and Armageddon It (to name a few of tonight’s treats) remain ridiculously catchy. In fact, the band could select any track from those two albums and the mesmerising interplay of riffage, drumbeats and trademark male harmonies would prove so addictive you might as well be mainlining heroin.

They deliver hit after hit with panache and swagger. That’s to be expected, but the undercurrent of brash spontaneity is the true delight. Sure there’s a faint whiff of ham about the rock poses, but the broad grins plastered across the faces of Elliott and company tell the real story, and the crowd laps up the rock-arena atmosphere as the band energetically defies the weight of three decades.

The bliss-out moments flow thick and fast: a shirtless, sweaty and very buff Collen falling to his knees to rip through a stunning solo on Photograph, Campbell’s atmospheric guitar intro to Foolin’, the one-armed Allen pounding his multi-pedalled custom drumkit throughout with a precision and gusto that any other drummer would envy.

Then there’s the indisputable climax: the compulsory rendition of Pour Some Sugar On Me. Superficial pop-metal cheese was surely never so innuendo-laden. Yet all around, from standing area to top tier, thirteen thousand voices scream every word with blithe joy.

The flipside is that the strength of those tunes highlights the paucity of newer material.

It’s a lonely duo that hail from latest effort Songs From The Sparkle Lounge. Of those, Nine Lives’ bluesy grunt rapidly loses its lustre. C’mon, C’mon fares better: the big chorus elicits an equally big crowd singalong, but the guitar hooks fuzzing underneath Allen’s rhythmic pounding lack bite. As a song, it’s also a strong contender for the most annoyingly repetitive lyrics since INXS’s Baby Don’t Cry.

From those tunes, there’s a 13-year gap to soppy 1995 power ballad When Love And Hate Collide. It’s impeccably delivered, and Elliott adroitly milks maximum bathos from the final few bars by coaxing the audience to take up the final few lines, but that yawning space highlights the fallow territory the band trod through Slang, Euphoria and X.

Nor do they reach any further back into their long history than High ‘n’ Dry. Switch 625 – a searing instrumental originally penned by the late Steve Clark – comes closest to their edgier roots, its balls-to-the-wall twin-guitar genius dropping like a bomb out of a charming acoustic rendition of Bringin’ On The Heartbreak.

As the English rockers eventually finish an epic performance with Let’s Get Rocked (another early 90s hit), it’s hard not to conclude that “This is now.” is inextricably tied to “That was then.”. Maybe that’s as it should be. On stage at least, Def Leppard still possesses a vitality that resists any slide into self-caricature. And the five minutes of mass adulation from virtually every corner of the BEC in answer to Elliott’s closing call “Do you wanna get rocked?” could hardly be a bigger endorsement of one of rock’s under-appreciated giants.