Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Poison And Joan Jett A Home Run At Wrigley FieldJim Ryan
Jul 20, 2022
“Chicago! We’ve been waiting for this for two years!” exclaimed Poison frontman Bret Michaels, summing up the sentiment amongst a sold out crowd of over 40,000 fans at a jam packed Wrigley Field.
One of the summer’s most anticipated outings, “The Stadium Tour,” featuring Classless Act, Joan Jett, Poison, Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe, continues through the summer and into fall, scheduled to wrap up September 9 in Las Vegas.
Poison nearly stole the show in the late afternoon hours, hitting the stage just before 6 PM in Chicago, packing decades worth of party anthems into about 45 minutes at Wrigley Field.
“I cannot stop smiling!” mused Michaels on stage. “This right here… For two years, I’ve been waiting for this party,” he reiterated, setting up “Talk Dirty To Me.” Guitarist C.C. DeVille made his way down the runway, to about shallow center field, slaying a solo as Michaels danced along nearby.
Michaels seemed at home on harmonica in the home of the blues as Poison put its spin upon the 1972 Loggins and Messina hit “Your Mama Don’t Dance.” Later, the singer sent “Every Rose Has its Thorn” out to victims of a July 4 mass shooting in Highland Park, a suburb about 25 miles north of Wrigley Field.
Nobody Friday seemed as excited to be on stage as Michaels, a wide grin across his face throughout Poison’s relentlessly entertaining and energetic set. “Sweet home Chicago!” he exclaimed as Poison made its way toward close. “Home of one of the greatest baseball teams in the world!”
DeVille and drummer Rikki Rockett, clad in a Chicago Cubs jersey, kicked in the familiar opening of “Nothin’ but a Good Time” as Poison headed for the finish line in the Windy City, a song that perhaps best sums up “The Stadium Tour.”
“How ya doin’, Chicago?” asked Joan Jett rhetorically on stage at Wrigley. “We are The Blackhearts!”
Jett’s 45 minute set was, in its no frills approach to rock and roll, a throwback to a bygone era, one full of fist pumps and defined by angsty anthems.
Jett, backed by a powerhouse four piece band, tore through each facet of her career with reckless abandon, hitting on everything from the unabashed punk of her vastly influential first group The Runaways to the acoustic splendor of her latest studio album Changeup.
“I just wanna mention this real quickly before the next song ‘Light of Day,’” she said, referencing her film debut alongside Michael J. Fox in the 1987 drama. In the movie, Jett teams with Fox to deliver the Bruce Springsteen-penned “Light of Day” as fictitious rock group The Barbusters, part of a project shot throughout the Chicagoland area. “I’ve got rock and roll music on my radio!” sang Jett during the performance, spinning to her right as she played.
While the crowd, fists in the air, helped Jett deliver the trademark “oh yeah!” backing to “Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah),” the biggest sing-along of the afternoon was saved for “Crimson and Clover,” a top 10 hit for The Blackhearts in 1982, 13 years after it first topped the charts courtesy of Tommy James and The Shondells.
Jett sent the crowd into a frenzy, closing in raucous fashion with the combination of “I Hate Myself For Loving You” and “Bad Reputation.”
The smell of sulfur spread across Wrigley Field as smoke rolled throughout the stadium, fake sirens blaring, the sun just beginning to set, as 80s stalwarts Mötley Crüe waited in the wings.
“How ya doin’ tonight, Chicago?” asked frontman Vince Neil. “It’s been many years since we seen ya,” he continued, noting the group’s first performance in the Chicagoland area since 2015. “Right now we’re gonna do a song off the first album. Who likes the first album?” he said, setting up “Too Fast for Love” from the 1981 record of the same name a once unthinkable 40 years later.
“Wild Side” and “Shout at the Devil” opened a fun set, the bass and drums of rhythm section Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee largely drowning out Neil in the early goings.
“How about a drink?” said Neil. “I need a guitar,” he continued, setting up a slightly slowed down take on “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away).”
Tuned down to accommodate the singer, Mötley Crüe nevertheless ably delivered the hits over just about an hour and a half, setting the stage for a closing performance by Def Leppard.
“Is it alright if I play some keyboard for ya?” asked affable and entertaining drummer Tommy Lee. Lee, continuing his recovery from broken ribs, made his way down the runway from his drum kit, taking center stage for one of the biggest power ballads of all time in “Home Sweet Home.”
“Are you guys feelin’ good?” asked Neil of the crowd, the Crüe about to break out of the ballad with a vengeance in the form of “Dr. Feelgood.” “Mick Mars!” he shouted, pointing to his left.
Mars, 71, was the unquestionable star of Mötley Crüe’s set. With church imagery ironically flanking the group on screen, the guitarist slayed every solo in his path while Neil allowed the audience to do the heavy vocal lifting on “Same Ol’ Situation.”
“Look at this place…” mused Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott, taking stock of the unique, ivy-covered Wrigley Field expanse. “Look at this place!”
Def Leppard was a “Stadium Tour” highlight in Chicago. Aside from Jett, Def Leppard was one of the few acts willing to take a chance on stage, opening with “Take What You Want” and “Fire It Up,” a pair of cuts from their brand new album Diamond Star Halos, one which cracked the top 10 of the Billboard 200 album chart, placing the group alongside pop acts following its release in May.
In their closing performance - Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe are alternating closing sets each night of “The Stadium Tour” - Def Leppard wasted no time getting to the hits, putting forth “Animal” and “Foolin’” early, seemingly eternally shirtless guitarist Phil Collen opting for a vest in Chicago as he shouted out the iconic backing vocal parts.
On a day largely defined by loud guitars, one of the biggest surprises was the resounding success of a Def Leppard acoustic set, one which saw Elliott pick up guitar on the appropriately titled “This Guitar,” a new Diamonds track which features bluegrass singer Alison Krauss. The performance took on a folk feel with each member kicking in on the group’s trademark backing harmonies.
A stripped down take on “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” followed but the true standout was Elliott’s solo effort on “Two Steps Behind.” In a live era dominated by backing tracks and other artificial assists, the performance put the focus squarely on Elliott’s still sparkling lead vocal, a rare example of how to age gracefully in the hard rock genre.For artists relegated largely to the state fair circuit by the dawn of the 2000s, “The Stadium Tour” once again proves that music is cyclical, each act on the bill arguably as relevant as they’ve ever been, selling out massive outdoor stadiums across the country.
Up-and-coming Los Angeles rock quintet Classless Act set the table on an overcast day, early in the afternoon about 3:45 PM local time in Chicago.
“Wrigley Field, we are Classless Act and we’ve got something to say!” declared singer Derek Day, playing to the fans in the massive venue during opening cut “This is for You.”
Classless Act’s is a fun story, a group making the jump to larger venues this year just months removed from their first tour as opening act for blues rockers Dorothy in small clubs. Working with famed producer Bob Rock, the band recorded parts of their debut album Welcome to the Show in Tommy Lee’s home studio, Neil guesting on the song “Classless Act,” a rollicking cut the group closed with at Wrigley Field.
“Would you look at the time?! We’ve got one more song for you guys,” said Day, setting up the performance.
“Classless Act” conjured up images of early, gritty Guns N’ Roses, Day taking to harmonica as guitarist Dane Pieper held his guitar aloft, strumming out the song’s rhythm part as rain began to fall, the beginning of a long afternoon of live music at Wrigley Field.
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