Re-Viewed: Def Leppard

By Julene McCoy in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 6, 2005 12:04AM

Sunday evening instead of donning the required hawaiian shirts and leis for Jimmy Buffett, Chicagoist decided to feed our inner rock beast by seeing Def Leppard at Charter One Pavilion on Northerly Island. 18 years after our first experience with the British group, we were not disappointed. The bands vocals were more processed than we remembered, but we have become a little more savvy since then about live music.

Def Leppard started the show with a couple of their newer songs that are in the more adult contemporary genre than all out rock, but that allowed us to ease into their set after the snooze-fest that Billy Squier brought with his acoustic show. Although, we joked that one hasn't really lived until hearing "The Stroke" all slow and drawn out.

After the opening songs, Def Leppard jumped right into the golden oldies that everyone has imprinted into their brains, "Hysteria", "Armageddon It", "Foolin'" and the power ballad "Love Bites". During the show fireworks from Navy Pier were visible adding to the light show on stage. The strangest parts of the evening were when the 25 year veterans decided to play a couple of covers - Badfinger's "No Matter What", which is the lone new track recorded for The Definitive Collection, and David Essex's "Rock On". No hit was left unsung as Def Leppard played "Animal", "Rocket", and "Rock of Ages", as well.

Def Leppard took an extremely quick break before returning for a short encore ending it all with none other than "Pour Some Sugar On Me". Chicago was the last show of their outside tour and the band noted that the front row was the best they had enjoyed all tour long. It may have been cheesy and nostalgic, but there's no harm in reminiscing about lost youth every once in a while.