http://www.herald-dispatch.com/2003/July/31/LNlist8.htm

NEWS |Thursday, July 31, 2003

All-ages crowd jams to retro rock

By DAVE LAVENDER - The Herald-Dispatch

HUNTINGTON -- Doug Wayne got a severe burn on his ankle Tuesday, but he wasn't
going to let that stop him from enjoying a little "Pyromania" on Wednesday.

With his leg wrapped up to his knee, Wayne, 28, and his wife, Anetisa, were just
two of the more than 2,700 fans that grooved on hours of hit pop rock from the
five-man British band, Def Leppard, that played the Big Sandy Superstore Arena.

"I can't get a cast until Friday, and I already had tickets, and I couldn't miss
it," said a determined Wayne, who was attending his seventh Def Leppard concert.

With the stage warmed up by band friend, Ricky Warwick, the band, whose albums
"Pyromania" and "Hysteria" sold more than 20 million copies combined in the
1980s, hit the crowd with one of the best light shows in the arena this year,
and a steady stream of sugary, pop rock that the crowd knew the words to by
heart.

The band started slow with several early songs including "Rock, Rock 'Til You
Drop," and "Bringing on the Heartbreak," before lead singer Joe Elliot welcomed
the crowd with the kind of just-between-friends banter lost on most younger rock
stars.

"Oh yeah," Elliott said as the crowd roared. "Good evening, Huntington. It's
really good to be in town. How y'all doing? We will be carrying right on with
something else from the 'Pyromania' album."

The band members, who were seen about town on Tuesday night as they stayed over
a day before the Wednesday show, have been here and everywhere scores of times.

Elliott said it has been 23 years since they first "set foot on American soil"
touring with the likes of such bands as Pat Travers and Ted Nugent off the
band's first album "On Through the Night"

The band last played Huntington in September 2000.

Ron Butcher, 40, of Columbus, Ohio, saw them in Huntington in 1983 with
Blackfoot.

A freelance photographer, Butcher is on the road with Def Leppard for three
weeks before shooting some Aerosmith and KISS shows.

"As long as the '70s and '80s rock bands are on the road, then life is good,"
Butcher said. "Nowadays, these bands hate everybody and everything. Back then it
was just about getting laid."

As it was Wednesday night. Couples of all ages curled up around each other as
the hits just kept coming from "Pour Some Sugar On Me," "Photograph" and
"Animal" to one of the band's closing numbers, "Love Bites."

Def Leppard didn't invent the power-rock ballad, but they might have perfected
it, with the way the British like it, two lumps of sugar.

For the Arena, it was a rare alignment. Two rock shows in a row.

Disturbed headlined a show that drew about 2,500 on Tuesday, while Def Leppard
drew a definite older crowd, but one scattered with folks of all ages.

And in the words of Cpl. Vernon Casey, of the Huntington Police Department,
definitely a mellower crowd than Tuesday.

Casey said it was a good, nostalgic rollback.

"These guys' music was playing at my senior prom," said a laughing Casey, whose
20-year class reunion is in August.

Bill and Pam Daniel, 34 of Scott Depot, brought their 2-year-old son Zach to his
second rock show.

He was one of several young kids in the audience to see the band, which is now
in its 23rd year of touring the United States, said lead singer Joe Elliott from
stage.

Eric Moore, 21, of Price Hill, W.Va., who was at the show with his buddy Mark
Riffle, 20, of Craigsville, W.Va., was one of many Gen. Y folks in the audience
who didn't mind sporting the band's trademark "Union Jack" T-shirt.

"I love 'em," Moore shouted.

"A lot of people might think we are out of our age group but we love it," Riffle
said. 

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