Journey and Def Leppard, Starwood Amphitheatre, Nashville, TN
Twelve years and 90 pounds ago. That is how long it has been since I last saw Def Leppard. I am not the only person in Nashville, Tennessee who can mark the passage of time in belt loops. Nostalgia is a bitch.
Rock critics and hipsters can make all the snide remarks they wish about a Journey/Def Leppard show, but in this era of three dollars per gallon gas and the perpetual tale of woe told by the concert industry, Journey and Def Leppard sold out the 17,000 seat Starwood Amphitheatre. Validation? Maybe not, but it does say something.
The two veteran rock acts played sets of nearly equal length on a warm, humid, breezy night at Starwood (which is, by the way, the best outdoor venue I have ever seen a show at). Journey played first with Def Leppard following.
Def Leppard is a major segment of the soundtrack of my middle school and high school life and my notes reflect it. I took two full pages of notes during Journey's set. I did not need that for Def Leppard — I know these songs. I needed no notes to remember them. That and well…I got in that time machine Guster speaks of (you just knew Guster would have to figure in to this review at some point) and remembered the good parts of being young again.