Def Leppard - The Leadmill Sheffield

SHEFFIELD HOMECOMING PART ONE....

THE GOOD.....and the BAD !!!! On May 19th 2023 I was lucky enough to attend one of Def Leppards smallest gigs for years. The band were brilliant as always. I have seen Def Leppard on so many occasions live including some other special gigs they have done. This gig is the 1st of 4 that I will attend this year. The setlist was brilliant and contained a couple of songs even I hadn't seen them play live. They promised a few curveballs and they set their stall out early by starting with their well known cover version 'Action!' (originally recorded by The Sweet). I bet nobody had money on that!

Onwards they rolled through 'Fire It Up' from their latest album Diamaond Star Halos and quickly back to the early Sheffield days with 'Let It Go' from the High 'n' Dry album. 'Too Late For Love' from Pyromania was up next and then another curveball that surprised me with 'Excitable' from Hysteria, but the sheer audacity of throwing this surprise outing of the song impressed me so much. Personally that song for me is the worst song they recorded from their 1st 6 albums (which just goes to show you how amazing the other 11 songs on Hysteria are as it's one of the best albums ever recorded). Then another curveball, and for me the best one of the whole night...'Mirror Mirror' again from the High 'n' Dry album. They would go on to play 4 tracks of the 13 they played from that album.

The band were not done with the surprises as they let rip with Slang from the album of the same title before bringing it right back up to date with 'Kick', again from the latest album.

Back to the second album we went with the brilliant ' Bringin' On The Heartbreak' which always rolls into one of my favourites 'Switch 625' just as it did on the album. They finished off their main set with 2 of their biggest tracks from Hysteria, those being the title track itself which also featured an excerpt into David Bowies 'Heroes' and the crowd favourite 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' to rapturous crowd participation (more on that in a minute).

The band returned for a very fitting encore of 'Wasted' from their 1st album On Through The Night. 'Wasted' was the bands 1st ever single released in November 1979.

So to the not so good points (subjective of course). I spoke to a fair few people who were at the gig, but only a handful seemed to be full on Leppard fans like me. If you watch the video and compare the songs like Mirror Mirror and Wasted with Pour Some Sugar On Me you'll see what I mean. I'm not sure how many knew the majority of the songs that were played. In hindsight maybe the tickets could have been sold to fan club members first? I think a lot of really massive and genuine Leppard fans missed out which for me is a bit of a shame. Some people who were there had never seen Def Leppard before.

The other slightly annoying thing for me (and this isn't specific to this gig) is the use of fake crowds. This is happening at so many music gigs these days along with sporting events too. It's their to generate an atmosphere, I get that, but to me it's getting silly how obvious it is. The funny thing is there are many people who don't know about it until you point it out to them. Once you hear it, you can't unhear it!

So, we're back at the next Def Leppard concert which is on Monday 22nd May just 3 days after this gig. I can't wait. It's going to be amazing!