Def Leppard added some arena dates to their Summer Stadium Tour 2024 and, hardly coincidental, packed the Moda Center to the rafters on Monday in Portland, OR for the band’s first visit in six years.
And, based on past experience, those in attendance probably fared way better than those who showed for the much larger venues. Paid more too. A lot more.
Suffice it to say, Def Leppard in a quasi 40 year anniversary tour of their smash hit Pyromania, released in 1983, sure had fun picking songs off that album plus another album that soon turns 40. Both got dug into heavily, as they usually do, with seven taken from Pyromania including deeper cuts like “Die Hard the Hunter” and “Comin’ Under Fire” and six off the other album as part of the 18-song, 90 minute setlist.
Closing in on 50 years, Def Leppard showed little wear and tear though singer Joe Elliott’s octave ceiling has lowered a bit even from just five years ago. The use of microphone techniques like echo effects helped with depth and his bandmates, primarily guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell, added pitch. His lower range was on par and despite age slowly catching up – he’s 65 give him a break – throughout the evening Elliott sounded strong and fully delivered the goods from the start “Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop)” on the band’s rocking new single “Just Like ‘73” (a near powerhouse of a song and according to Collen “the seed of another Def Leppard record” -woo hoo!) to the rippin’ final song “Pour Some Sugar On Me” off the other album.
Just one off their latest – 2022’s Diamond Star Halos which of the reviews I read did not receive a lot of favorable write-ups, except this one – the country-tinged “This Guitar” and though I would have greatly preferred album opener “Take What You Want” – an instant Def Leppard classic – Elliott brought out the acoustic and pulled on some hearts strings by sandwiching the song between a shortened “Two Steps Behind” and the opening to “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak” before the rest of the band broke in fully plugged in.
Elliott said Def Leppard will be back, likely for the 40th anniversary of the other album that followed Pyromania in 1987, and perhaps they have figured out the amplification issues that plague stadium shows, but hopefully they stick to arenas. It serves both fan and band well.
Still celebrating 50 years, Journey “opened” as co-headliner and actually played about five minutes longer. In a first, for me at least, the concert started early as Journey hit the stage five minutes before showtime. They did not exceed their headlining performance last year in Eugune, OR but did best all other times I’ve seen them as co-headliners.