Date sent:        Mon, 20 Nov 1995 00:50:43 -0600
From:             Chris Zastrow <zastc@sasknet.sk.ca
Subject:          New Musical Express - 11 November 95 - pages 14 and 15


Leaving On A Def Plane
  by Derek Ridgers

Three gigs...on three different continents...in one day?  It's the sort of
record-breaking, rock'n'roll, excess-all-areas jaunt tailor-made for
behemoths of poodle-metal DEF LEPPARD...and for Paul Moody, begging for
champagne and shuttling sleeplessly between Tangiers, London and Vancouver.
 Suppose a shot's out of the question?

  There are those who suggest that the life of the humble rock hack is one
endless whirl of champagne-swigging ligs, cosmic blow-outs and endless
drink'n'drug induced depravity whilst gibbering nonsense into the ears of
millionaire rock stars the planet over.  Wrong!
  Well, 99 times out of 100, such fantasies are the stuff of bitter dreams
whilst we stand, freezing, in the back corner of the Dog & Sprocket on a
freezing Tuesday night watching Crotchclamper and griping about how in the
good old days of a pre-punk 1975, things would have been different.
  But fear not!  Because every now and again, circumstance and The Ghost Of
Rock Excess Past collide and...shazam!  Suddenly anything is possible!
  Picture the scene.  It is early summer '95.  Gonzo, poodle-metal muthas Def
Leppard are slumped in front of the TV in their five respective matching
mansions in Los Angeles and Dublin.  They are bored.  The might have sold 50
million albums worldwide, become the biggest British rawk group in living
memory and achieved lifetime notoriety as the band that survived the death of
gutarist Steve Clark and the departure of drummer Rick Allen's arm, but
something's missing.  They need a challenge.  Suddenly the television fuzzes
into focus.  What's this?  Arch-rivals and labelmates Bon Jovi are in the
media circus thanks to their three-gigs-in-three-different-countries stunt
and it looks like they're having a ball in the process!
  As footage of 'little' Jon Bon Jovi scrambling on to planes to the creams
of hundreds of adoring fans comes onscreen, the Lep's collecitve brain whirrs
into action.  How could they show the world that it was Def Leppard, and not
dumb-ass Jon, who was the biggest rock band on the planet today...?
  It is October 23, 1995.  Today, believe it or not, is Def Leppard Day.
 Because, not content with playing three gigs in three different countries on
the same day (like, yawno), the Lep have opted to play three different gigs
in three different continents.  Consequently a bleary-eyed huddle of hacks,
camera crews and some Lep-obsessed copetition winners are huddled in the
departure lounge of Gatwick Airport preparing to embark on the most absurdly
over-the-top mission in rock history: that is, to break all known taboos on
gratuitous, music biz stupidity by playing acoustic shows in Tangiers, London
and Vancouver within the space of one day.
  In other words, they plan to spread the Lep gospel over three continents
and flounce their way into the Guinness Book Of Records ahead of Bon Jovi
into the bargain!  Hurrah!
  The first hilarious moment comes in the London departure lounge.  In a fit
of magnanimity, the Lep have decided to travel with our shambolic entourage
for the first leg of the journey.  Men with huge, furry, Prozac pill-shaped
mics stumble into each other in their haste to try and figure out who the
singer is.  Speccy, fashion-victim MTV presenters shout at them in loud
plummy voices and then ask each other the same thing.  The tabloid hacks,
despite having a front row seat for such unforeseen hilarity, start sniffing
around doggedly for some unsolicited 'dirt' on the Lep.
  The cheek of it!  Your correspondent, meanwhile, uses this opportunity to
probe into the minds of Lars and Morgan, two teenage Lep fanatics from
Denmark who'll be travelling not just on the London-Tangiers-London leg of
the journey, like most of the assembled freeloaders, but will also be with us
until the brain-rattling conclusion in Canada!  So, how did they both get
here?
  Morgan, reslendent in a 'Hysteria' T-shirt, tells the tale:  "We won a
competition in Denmark.  It was easy.  You just had to answer three questions
about them.  But you could only bring one person with you and so I thought
I'd better bring Lars."
  Not your girlfriend?
  "No.  She's just not as big a fan of the band as me and Lars!"
  On board, the circus gets truly underway.  For a start, having hired their
own plane for the three-hour flight to Tangiers, the record company has
chosen to customise it that every seatback carries the Def Leppard logo.
 This gives the impression of us being not on the tarmac in a dreary old GB
Airways shuttle but in the midst of some previously unseen mid-'70s
documentary on rock excess!  Fab!  Accordingly, when the drinks trolley
trundles into sight, we demand three magnums of champagne and a line of
'stuff' to keep our spirits up.  The stewardess looks at us with a withering
combination of pity and contempt.
  "Sorry.  Any champagne or spirits you have to pay for.  The beer is free,
though."
  Through a Heineken haze, Tangier's airport looks just about as exotic as
you'd imagine.  Huge palm trees ring the runway, surly moustachioed army
officers slouch around the customs area and mull over their favourite
Midnight Express fantasies.  That is until tour manager Malvin appears with a
bag full of Lep press photos, bellows "Moroccan currency!" to no-one in
particular and gets the band to sign them until their felt-pens run out.  Any
threat of imprisonment then gets forgotten as our would-be tormentors
struggle to work out which of the identikit Leps is which.
  Before anything as run of the mill as the 'gig' can take place, however,
the band, as fully-fledged VIPs, have been invited to a banquet to be
attended by the British Consul and the Governor of Tangiers.  So, just as
we're making ourselves comfortable poolside, drinking vinegar-wine to the
strains of, unbelievably, Barry White, we are herded toward a huge marquee in
front of which a group of men in white smocks and scarlet fezzes are making a
gawdawful racket to the bemusement of all but some stony-faced camels.
  Once seated, we are then treated to the joys of seeing a near-naked belly
dancer, a worryingly deranged-looking snake charmer, a bearded fire-eater and
a group of local Moroccan musicians, called Village People, who open their
set with a song which all concerned, after several gallons of plonk, are
convinced is 'In The Navy'.
  Thus fortified, we arrive at the Grottes D'Hercule to discover that the
evening's show will not be in one of the Lep's usual superstadia but in a
subterranean cave which leads directly out into the sea.  So flabbergasted is
everone by such visual overload that on-one even flinches when the pre-show
warm-up tune turns out to be Mike And the Mechanics' 'Living Years'.
  The Lep then appear in casually seated acoustic mode.  Despite all
requests, they refuse to play stone-cold classic 'Let's Get Rocked' or first
mega-smash 'Photograph', and instead stroll through a load of old Lep hits
and covers of 'Ziggy Stardust', Hendrix's 'Little Wing' and The Stones' 'You
Can't Always Get What You Want' before ending with a fearsome 'Pour Some
Sugar On Me' ("You got the peaches/I got the cream!"), which has the local
Lep fan club in pogoing paroxysms of joy.
  On the plane that whisks us directly back to London, we get the chance to
have ten minutes with Joe Elliott, singing head honcho and ever-affable
brains of the Lep organisation.  This whole shebang, it transpires, was Joe's
idea.  He shuffles across the plane from his previous mini-interview and
plants himself in the next seat.  The first thing that hits you about Joe is
that he has very strange eyes.
  So, Def Leppard are a truly enormous rock band.  Why bother going to all
this trouble just for the poxy old Guinness Book Of Records?
  "Well, it's not just to do with that,"  he enthuses, locking in with a
snake-charmer's stare.  "It's an excuse for us to do something that's
actually gonna be challenging rather than to do some silly rivalry between us
and anybody else.  Plus it means a lot of people can have a good time on us."
  Joe stops looking pointedly at my free beer and starts getting wide-eyed
about the days before he was a millionaire rock colossus.
  "I mean, do you think anybody on this plane ever really thought they'd be
here?  Look at me, here, talking to you at 32,000 feet and travelling at a
160 miles an hour or summat...it's incredible!"
  But isn't the reason we're here a teensy-weensy bit because Def Leppard
would like some half-decent press as well as a mention in the record books?
  "Well, I dunno about that.  There's some bands that get loads of good
press, like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and there's those that don't.  It just
happens, but...I dunno.  It does get on me nerves when people go on and on
about someone like Neil Young as if he can't do any wrong, and then you hear
what his latest album sounds like..."
  So what does Joe think of dance music?
  "What?...Err, well I'll be honest with you.  I don't like it, it just
doesn't interest me.  I'm just old-fashioned, I like people like Bowie,
Hendrix, the New York Dolls..."
  Does he see any similarity between Lep and the 'Dolls?  After all, the
group, record sales aside, doesn't seem to have had much luck...
  "Us, like the 'Dolls?  Hur-hur, no way.  It might look like it because of
the trouble we've had, and Clarky dying, but we're nothing like that, believe
me, we're as ordinary as it comes, and the fans respect that.
  Thus starved of tales of rock'n'roll Valhalla, we arrive at Heathrow ahead
of time and find ourselves in the Shepherd's Bush Bottom Line club at a
deathly 9am.  The upstairs reception area looks like a battlefield.  Weary
film crews demolish large parts of the buffet; the more wily souls realise
that a small window has appeared in the itinerary and sneak home for an hour;
the bloodshot hack-pack give up on the mood of Dep Lep detente and suggest
open rebellion.
  The only real sign of insanity, however, comes from the competition
winners, who refuse all enticement of mutiny and instead head to the balcony
to claim their seats for the three-hour wait before the Lep come on!  Argh!
 Who are these people?
  Maddest of all is Alan Taylor from Birmingham.  A wardrobe-fitter and Lep
fan since 1987's 'Hysteria', he's blagged his trip through a competition on
Beacon Radio in Wolverhampton.
  Alan muses on the nature of fortune.
  "It's funny because me and me wife are both really big Def Leppard fans,
and we both went in for the competition.  Then on the third night they said
they'd give the prize to the eighth caller who had the answer right.  And she
was the seventh and I was the eighth!"
  Whilst still reeling from this pearl of cosmic wisdom, Alan makes his
excuses, informs me that the band "couldn't have been friendlier" and picks
his way through the prone bodies to a front-of-balcony spot with Morgan and
Lars.
  Meanwhile, the place fills up with all manner of liggers sniffing out the
free drink, and a mass of loyal Lep fans who've queued up in the freezing
cold outside for a chance to see the band sober and without amps.  Sensing
this, Joe wears a different hat to the one we saw in Tangiers.  Now he is no
longer soul-baring singer-songwriter but rock ringmaster, taunting his
hungover/frozen flock with all manner of well-meaning nonsense.
  "That one's off our new album 'Slang', he says, as 'All I Want Is
Everything' trundles to a close.  "See!  Not only is this show entertaining
but it's educational too!"  Time to leave.
  The flight to Canada is a bummer.  Not only have we lost the entertainment
value unwittingly provided by the warring film crews and the mutinous hacks,
we're facing a gruelling nine-hour plane journey having had no sleep for 36
hours.  Worse, on arrival in Vancouver (a big Lep town, by all accounts) we
find our passports being stamped vigorously by a woman who declares that the
entire town is "pumped for the show".  By the time we get to the gig, at 9pm
here and 6am UK time, the strain's got to Joe.
  "We've played in Tangiers at a minute past midnight, in London at
lunchtime, and now we're gonna play live here for you tonight and make it
into the record books!" he booms, before clanging into 'Armageddon It' for
the third time today.
  So brainwashed are we by now that when they strum through 'Two Steps
Behind', 'Animal' and an ever-more tagged 'Ziggy Stardust', it's impossible
not to join in with Lars and Morgan and holler along with every
fist-thumpin', mind-scramblin' chorus.
  Except, that is, when Joe halts proceedings and bizarrely declares, "This
might be the '90s, the decade of shoe-staring music, but we're gonna play ya
some real rock'n'roll music!" and you realise that Def Leppard haven't been
critically pilloried for years without good reason.
  So what?  Def Leppard may be poodle-haired, macho-minded, soft-metal
throwbacks of the first order, but, being in a band whose fans grave such
attributes, these are all positive qualities.  And besides.  At least they
know they're in a preposterous position, zooming around the world in a day,
talking bollocks to disinterested film crews and to their own fans.  That's
what these people want.
  After all, everyone has dreams.  It's simply a case that some people's
dreams are more stupid than others.


=================================================================
Chris Zastrow (coming soon:  "The Leppard Web")

     "Take it slow, make it last, take it easy not too fast
      don't let go!" -- "Let it Go" - Def Leppard
=================================================================