Def Leppard w/Styx & Foreigner @ Hershey Park Arena
August 15th, 2007 - by Ana Ng
In 1988, I was a 10-year-old latch-key kid with bad hair and an addiction to MTV. Every afternoon, I would do my homework while watching the daily top 5 countdown, rockin’ out to “One,” “Punk Rock Girl,” & of course “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” So, while other girls dreamed of riding unicorns or playing backup for Jem, I imagined myself in the front row of Def Leppard concert, thrashing and gyrating and singing along with lyrics I didn’t understand well enough to be embarrassed by. {I’m hot, sticky sweet, from my head (hea-ead) to my feet!}
So, yeah, you could say that heading west from Philly to see Def Leppard rockin’ the sweetest (SA-WEET!-est) place on earth was a dream come true. Sort of.
First of all, there was the whole Styx/Foreigner/Def Leppard line-up. In theory, this is a not-to-be-missed celebration of 80s awesomeness. In reality, it was kind of like a marathon of VH1’s Band’s Reunited — an homage to the rock n’ roll cliches of hairspray, spandex, & instrument acrobatics. (The keyboardist from Styx had a rotating Casio, which he periodically spun around, only to stop it suddenly and play it with this his hands behind his back.) Of course, there was a lot of mic stand swing dancin’. You know what I mean: the lead singer spins and dips and twirls the mic stand like he’s trying for a blue ribbon. All three bands were shamelessly guilty, but I think the prize goes to Def Leppard’s Joe Elliot, who seemed convinced that he could balance the mic stand on one finger for the duration of any guitar solo.
To be fair, I expected these bands to bring the cheese — and they didn’t bring anymore than they’d earned after 30 years of rockin’.
We got to the arena about 1/2 way through Styx — and were only in our seats for a song or two. But in that time I was entertained. Foreigner was pretty rockin’. Kelly Hansen, the new lead singer (since 2005) was spot on. His energy was super high, he showed alot of love for the crowd (a few times throwing his legs over the fence-like barriers on the sides of the stage, trying to get closer), and his vocals met my expectations of what all the Foreigner tunes should sound like.
Def Leppard on the other hand was not quite so satisfying. From the very first song (”Rocket”), something was off… at first, it seemed like the volume was turned down on Joe Elliot’s mic or it was way up on the guitars — you could just barely hear the singing. When you could hear it, his voice (much like his general presentation) lacked energy. He just kind of strutted around the stage, sometimes not even singing. About half-way through the show, it finally sounded like they got the volume right on the vocals… unfortunately, at the same time, something went south with bass guitar — and it started humming like an idling tractor trailor. I could feel my innards vibrating — which is as unpleasant as it sounds, making it really difficult to get into whatever song they happened to be playing (particularly when they played the ballad “Love Bites,” when every slow bass note felt like I was being dragged across a giant washboard).
Of course, everything was saved in my eyes when they finally played “Photograph,” “Pour Some Sugar On Me,” and “Rock of Ages.” Of course, I’m pretty sure at that point I was just hearing what I wanted to hear — I was also pretty relieved that it was almost time to go home.
