Article - Def Leppard's Las Vegas Residency is Sweet - 16Aug2019
Aug 15, 2019 23:27:21 GMT -8
andylgr, CindyJ, and 1 more like this
Post by Greta on Aug 15, 2019 23:27:21 GMT -8
Nothing at all new in this article but it could be interesting for newer Leppard fans who want some very basic background on the band.
Def Leppard's Las Vegas Residency is Sweet
by Matt Kelemen
Def Leppard worked overtime this summer as the debut of their 12-date extended engagement at Planet Hollywood Resort’s Zappos Theater approached. The band spent evenings performing concerts on an exhilarating Canadian tour, and days rehearsing for their return to Las Vegas with Def Leppard Hits Vegas: The Sin City Residency. The double duty indicated the Vegas setlist would be a departure from the song order the band played at concerts so far this year.
“We’ve been rehearsing the songs for the Vegas run,” says guitarist Phil Collen in a behind-the-scenes video posted to Def Leppard’s YouTube channel. “Songs we haven’t done for years.”
They also developed ideas for production, lights and stage movement for what would be their second Vegas residency, having set up camp at the Hard Rock Hotel for their first one in 2013. This time the Joe Elliott-fronted band returns as Rock and Roll Hall of Famers, having been inducted in March at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center along with The Cure, Radiohead and Roxy Music. Queen guitarist Brian May introduced them at the ceremony, remarking, “Not everybody realizes that these guys are not just crowd-pleasers. They also embody such an amazing technical excellence. They have it all.”
Queen was one of the primal influences on the youthful musicians who formed the initial lineup of Def Leppard. The twin guitar attacks of Judas Priest and Thin Lizzy were influential as well. Collen, who joined in 1982, describes founding guitarist Steve Clark as a riff-writing animal, and the hungry youthful quintet became one of the seminal acts among the new wave of British heavy metal bands that exploded out of England circa 1980.
Def Leppard’s sound was more hard rock, though, with vocal harmonies increasingly emphasized in their early recording career. “Hello America” from 1980 debut album On Through the Night made the band’s ambitions clear, but it was timing that enabled their breakthrough. Videos for the title track and “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak” from 1981’s High ’n’ Dry went into heavy rotation on a nascent MTV, demonstrating the band’s propensity for both being able to rock like AC/DC and write power ballads.
The exposure set the stage for the huge success of 1983’s Pyromania. Lead single “Photograph” exploded, and songs such as “Too Late for Love,” “Foolin’” and “Rock of Ages” put Def Leppard in the rock ’n’ roll pantheon permanently. The long awaited follow-up Hysteria added “Rocket,” “Animal,” “Love Bites,” “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and “Armageddon It” to the classic-era repertoire, as well as a new dimension in sound due to drummer Rick Allen’s switch to electronic drums.
Allen’s loss of an arm to an auto accident is only one of the tragedies that befell the band, which lost Clark to alcohol poisoning and nearly lost bassist Rick Savage to Bell’s palsy. Former Dio guitarist Vivian Campbell, whose tenure with the band is now longer than Clark’s, has been instrumental in enabling Def Leppard to endure and harness the wind when it’s at their back, like right now. By all appearances, it looks like the band that persuaded fans to rock, rock ’til they drop intends to rock, rock, never stop.
SOURCE
Def Leppard's Las Vegas Residency is Sweet
by Matt Kelemen
Def Leppard worked overtime this summer as the debut of their 12-date extended engagement at Planet Hollywood Resort’s Zappos Theater approached. The band spent evenings performing concerts on an exhilarating Canadian tour, and days rehearsing for their return to Las Vegas with Def Leppard Hits Vegas: The Sin City Residency. The double duty indicated the Vegas setlist would be a departure from the song order the band played at concerts so far this year.
“We’ve been rehearsing the songs for the Vegas run,” says guitarist Phil Collen in a behind-the-scenes video posted to Def Leppard’s YouTube channel. “Songs we haven’t done for years.”
They also developed ideas for production, lights and stage movement for what would be their second Vegas residency, having set up camp at the Hard Rock Hotel for their first one in 2013. This time the Joe Elliott-fronted band returns as Rock and Roll Hall of Famers, having been inducted in March at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center along with The Cure, Radiohead and Roxy Music. Queen guitarist Brian May introduced them at the ceremony, remarking, “Not everybody realizes that these guys are not just crowd-pleasers. They also embody such an amazing technical excellence. They have it all.”
Queen was one of the primal influences on the youthful musicians who formed the initial lineup of Def Leppard. The twin guitar attacks of Judas Priest and Thin Lizzy were influential as well. Collen, who joined in 1982, describes founding guitarist Steve Clark as a riff-writing animal, and the hungry youthful quintet became one of the seminal acts among the new wave of British heavy metal bands that exploded out of England circa 1980.
Def Leppard’s sound was more hard rock, though, with vocal harmonies increasingly emphasized in their early recording career. “Hello America” from 1980 debut album On Through the Night made the band’s ambitions clear, but it was timing that enabled their breakthrough. Videos for the title track and “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak” from 1981’s High ’n’ Dry went into heavy rotation on a nascent MTV, demonstrating the band’s propensity for both being able to rock like AC/DC and write power ballads.
The exposure set the stage for the huge success of 1983’s Pyromania. Lead single “Photograph” exploded, and songs such as “Too Late for Love,” “Foolin’” and “Rock of Ages” put Def Leppard in the rock ’n’ roll pantheon permanently. The long awaited follow-up Hysteria added “Rocket,” “Animal,” “Love Bites,” “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and “Armageddon It” to the classic-era repertoire, as well as a new dimension in sound due to drummer Rick Allen’s switch to electronic drums.
Allen’s loss of an arm to an auto accident is only one of the tragedies that befell the band, which lost Clark to alcohol poisoning and nearly lost bassist Rick Savage to Bell’s palsy. Former Dio guitarist Vivian Campbell, whose tenure with the band is now longer than Clark’s, has been instrumental in enabling Def Leppard to endure and harness the wind when it’s at their back, like right now. By all appearances, it looks like the band that persuaded fans to rock, rock ’til they drop intends to rock, rock, never stop.
SOURCE