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Revisiting the Seventies
Def Leppard moves forward with concert tour that looks back
Thursday, June 22, 2006
BY JAY LUSTIG
Star-Ledger Staff

POP/ROCK

They could have concentrated on pop standards of the '40s and '50s, or 
classic-rock tunes of the '60s, or hits by bands that peaked, as they did, in 
the 1980s.

But for their first collection of cover songs -- "Yeah!," which was released 
last month on the Mercury/Universal label -- British rock quintet Def Leppard 
looked to the days of glam-rock, power-pop and proto-punk. The album is an 
affectionate tribute to artists like T. Rex, Thin Lizzy, Sweet, Free and David 
Bowie, who are represented, mostly, by songs that came out between 1970 and 
1974.

"It's why we got into music, when we were 14, 15," said guitarist Phil Collen, 
48, of "Yeah!" selections like David Essex's "Rock On," the Faces' "Stay With 
Me" and Mott the Hoople's "The Golden Age of Rock & Roll." "It was the moment 
in time where it's kind of like, 'This is my music, this is really speaking to 
me.' We were impressionable 14-year-olds or 15-year-olds.

"We didn't want (the album) to be just a bunch of covers, or a throwaway thing. 
It's actually very important to us."

The band -- which is double-billed with Journey at the Tweeter Center in Camden 
tomorrow, the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel on Tuesday, and the Borgata in 
Atlantic City on July 1 -- is known for its polished, multi-layered sound, 
achieved via long hours in the recording studio.

But they kept the music simple and direct this time around. The Kinks' 
"Waterloo Sunset" is stripped down to its bittersweet, melodic essence. "Stay 
With Me," featuring a rare lead vocal by Collen, sounds like it was cranked out 
during a late-night jam session.

"Mainly it was the material (that dictated the recording strategy)," says 
Collen, who forms the band with singer Joe Elliott, 46, bassist Rick Savage, 
45, drummer Rick Allen, 42, and guitarist Vivian Campbell, 43. "It started 
sounding quite wrong if you went and did tons of overdubs. It was more about 
the feel of it, and capturing what the song was all about."

Some tracks, like "Rock On" and Badfinger's "No Matter What," were huge hits in 
their original incarnations. Most, though, are more obscure.

Bowie is represented by "Drive-In Saturday," T. Rex by "20th Century Boy," and 
Thin Lizzy by "Don't Believe a Word."

"We didn't want to do (ultrafamiliar songs like) 'Bang a Gong,' by T. Rex," 
says Collen. "We didn't want to do 'The Boys Are Back in Town,' by Thin Lizzy, 
or 'The Jean Genie,' by Bowie, because they've been done so much."

Last summer, Def Leppard, partnering with Bryan Adams, undertook an unusual 
tour of minor-league baseball stadiums, including FirstEnergy Park in Lakewood 
and Campbell's Field in Camden. This time around, they're sticking to more 
traditional arenas, theaters and amphitheaters.

"That tour came about based on Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson going out (to 
minor-league stadiums, the summer before)," says Collen. "Bryan Adams suggested 
it, and it seemed like a great idea. We'd never done the minor league baseball 
stadiums before, and it was fun. Some were great venues -- great for the 
audience -- and others were just fields, in the middle of nowhere.

"But wherever we played, we've always played worse. We've played in toilets and 
fields and God knows what; it was all a learning experience."

© 2006 The Star-Ledger.