http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/music/20090624_No_new_spots_but_then_none_needed.html

No new spots, but then, none needed
Def Leppard, Poison, and Cheap Trick stuck to what they do best, and that was 
great.
Posted on Wed, Jun. 24, 2009

By Sam Adams
FOR THE INQUIRER

At the end of Def Leppard's show Tuesday night, lead singer Joe Elliott offered 
the audience at the Susquehanna Bank Center a deal: "Don't forget about us, and 
we won't forget about you."

It was a moment of unusual vulnerability for a band whose most fervent 
pronouncements generally involve the word rock. But gratitude was the order of 
the night. Def Leppard, Poison, and Cheap Trick, who kicked off a seven-week 
tour in Camden, don't have much in common except paunches and power ballads. 
They were all just happy to be there.

In Def Leppard's case, remembering their fans meant focusing overwhelmingly on 
old material. "Nine Lives," the Tim McGraw co-penned single from last year's 
Songs from the Sparkle Lounge, was the only song released after 1993. Based on 
the polite stares and closed mouths that greeted the newish outlier, the lack 
of fresh material did not matter much.

Although nominally heavy metal, Def Leppard's songs hinge on monster choruses 
and multipart harmonies; they're a pop band in bondage gear. As "Bringin' on 
the Heartbreak" gathered speed, Elliott bounced around the stage in a frock 
coat like an eager English lord, juicing the audience singalongs with his 
outstretched hands.

It wasn't just the headliners who showed their appreciation. Poison's Bret 
Michael was positively burbling, thanking the crowd for "allowing me to keep 
doing what I love for 22 years." Considering how many years have elapsed since 
the band's last hit, Michaels' effusiveness would seem entirely appropriate. It 
proved contagious for the rest of the band as well, prompting a performance 
that was energetic if hardly earth-shattering.

Separated by time and good sense from the eyelinered excesses of their glory 
years, Poison seemed almost scrappy, notwithstanding the flame-shooting effects 
whose frequent deployment only underlined the lack of other stage gimmickry. 
The stripped-down-by-default approach paid surprising dividends, revealing a 
number of tidy melodies once buried under glam-metal bombast. C.C. DeVille's 
flamboyantly tuneless guitar solos brought many a song to a screeching halt, 
but even his furious fretting couldn't strip the candy coating off "Nothing But 
a Good Time."

Power-pop godfathers Cheap Trick felt no need to hide their hooks under a 
bushel. Cramming a half-dozen gems into a 40-minute set, they still found room 
for more new songs than the evening's other acts combined. Singer Robin Zander 
started off slow, but he kicked into high gear with "Sick Man of Europe," taken 
from the just-released The Latest. "I'm sure you'll hear a lot of that on the 
radio," quipped guitarist Rick Nielsen, acknowledging that, like their 
tourmates, they're more likely to be heard on a PlayStation than a car stereo. 
But for one night, they had control of the dial and never gave their audience a 
chance to change the station.

Copyright 2009