Def Leppard

Mullets, spandex trousers, guitar solos, dodgy Americanisms… the reasons to mock Def Leppard are many and varied. Unlike some of their contemporaries – who said Bon Jovi? – it’s obvious that da Leps are aware of their ridiculousness and do what they do with tongue planted firmly in collective cheek.

They also work, play and rock harder than any band I’ve seen in The Ambassador, which includes the mighty Queens Of The Stone Age. The key is that beneath all the bombast and bluster, Joe Elliott & Co. are hopeless music fans desperate to give punters the same adrenaline rush they got all those years from the likes of Bowie, Mott The Hoople and Sweet who are honoured tonight with a blistering cover of ‘Action’.

Despite having a new album to promote – the so-so X – the band do the decent thing and trot out what is essentially a Greatest Hits package. Formulaic cock rockers they may be, but ‘Foolin’’, ‘Armageddon It’, ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’, ‘Photograph’ et al are dispatched with such gusto that you can’t help grinning like a Cheshire Cat on E.

They are but mere hors d’oeuvres though for ‘Animal’, Def Leppard’s continent-conquering tour de force which even has the bounc…, er, crowd control operatives air guitaring like there’s no tomorrow.

No one, least of all the band, would claim this is great art, but as gloriously gonzoid nights out go, Def Leppard are hard to beat.