Def Leppard - Historia/In The Round In Your Face
Performance
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Def Leppard - Historia/In The Round In Your Face
Performance
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During their 1980's heyday, Def Leppard held the patent on the magic formula for rock and roll success, which is Chicks + Radio = $$$$. With the release of their Hysteria album in 1987, Def Leppard basically went from being a hard rockin', guy's band, to being a band where all of these guy's girlfriends liked them even more. With the help of famed producer "Mutt" Lang, Def Leppard continued to transform their sound and style, which their previous album Pyromania had started, and ended with a super-slick, meticulously produced album of pop-rock masterpieces called Hysteria. Damn near every song from that album was released as a radio single, and they almost all became top-ten hits. The girls were soon hysterical about Hysteria, and the lifelong male fans stood by them as well. This led to about a billion copies being sold. The fan base of rock/metal bands are primarily guys. On a good day, about ten percent of the crowd at a Metallica, or Korn concert might be made up of women. Just the opposite is true with an artist such as John Mayer, or Ricky Martin, who derive most of their sales from women (or gay dudes). Surely real men don't listen to this stuff? When you have the tremendous crossover appeal that Def Leppard had, the sky is the limit for success. When I was in high school during the early eighties, you could not turn on the radio without hearing a Def Leppard song. They fit nicely into both the album-rock and top-forty formats. These boys were still teenagers when they began to make a name for themselves with the release of their second album High And Dry. Potential just oozed from this album, and songs like "Bringin' On The Heartache" continues to be one of their most popular songs. Pyromania was the album that really launched these guys towards superstardom. A little more raw, and harder rockin' than Hysteria, Pyromania spawned a string of catchy hit singles and MTV video smashes. I still can't get Fa Fa Fa "Fooolin'" out of my head 20 years later. Their string of hit videos at the dawn of MTV were what introduced these young, good-looking boys to their army of screaming female fans who proceeded to send Pyromania to multi-platinum status. In The Round In Your Face is a live concert recording from Def Leppard's 1988 Hysteria world tour. These guys were probably the biggest rock band in the world at the time, and this recording shows them in their cocky prime. I may be mistaken, but I think the "in the round" stage show concept was made famous by this tour. I had certainly never seen it used before for a rock concert, but now you see it all of the time. To make a long story short, Def Leppard put on one hell of a kick-ass, high-energy show that you rarely see these days. From the opening chord of "Stagefright" the entire band never stopped running around the stage for a second. Either they were in great shape, or, well, you know what usually happened in the 80's when you mixed rock bands and cocaine - and these guys admittedly indulged quite often. It was especially good to see Steve "Steamin'" Clark playing the guitar again. I had almost forgotten about what a tragedy his death was - right at the very peak of his bands popularity. He really ruled the stage that night, strutting around with his Gibson Les Paul slung down around his knees, doing all of the rock-god poses, and cranking out those memorable riffs. He always reminded me of a young, blond-haired, version of Jimmy Page. Clarke's importance to the band is quite evident now, as they rapidly faded from the limelight, due to the increasingly weak albums they churned out without his songwriting and playing skills. Virtually every song played in this concert had an accompanying video hit, so the crowd enthusiastically greeted and sang along with every song. The highlight was halfway through the show when Phil Collin performed an excellent acoustic intro to "Bringin On The Heartbreak", with Clarke following on his double-neck Gibson SG. There are only a few guitarists out there who can pull off looking cool playing that monster guitar, and Steve was one of them. By the last few songs, the band were all shirtless and dripping with sweat. See a band do that now, and they would look like dorks - maybe with the exception of Angus Young, but eighties-era Def Leppard could pull it off and look damn cool doing it. As great as the music was, their light and laser show was equally brilliant. I have never seen so many lasers used in my life. The "in the round" stage design fit their style of performance perfectly, as it allowed every audience member to see each of the band members perform from every vantage point. Being that this is a transfer from 1980's VHS source material, the video is rather poor by today's standards. The concert footage is very grainy and the colors are very washed out, but it wasn't so terrible that you could not enjoy the concert. The camera work was exceptional and the editor did a fine job. You are presented with a great viewing vantage point, as if you were at the show and were allowed to walk around the stage in front of the first row. Can't get much better than that. The sound quality was slightly better than the video, although it was only presented in Dolby Digital stereo. Their wasn't particularly good instrument separation or clarity, but it was well recorded for an arena concert. If you have a good sound system and turn it up loud enough, it will sound just like you are there. The Hystoria videos are basically all of their 1980's videos that were seen non-stop on MTV. Several of them are simply edited recordings from their live show, and others are very silly looking concept videos. This was the time when all rock bands were cranking out videos, and they actually got shown on Rap-TV, err, I mean MTV. Take them for what they are, a nostalgic look back at a great rock band in their prime. Reviewed by Paul M. Roy - September 2004 |
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Track List - Hystoria |
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Running Times: 86 Minutes (Historia), |
DVD Release Date - February 2002 |