Date: Saturday, August 25, 2012
City: St. Louis, MO
Venue: Chaifetz Arena
Opening act(s): Lita Ford, Poison
Headlining act: Def Leppard
Lita Ford Setlist:
The Bitch Is Back
Hungry
Gotta Let Go
Living Like A Runaway
Close My Eyes Forever
Kiss Me Deadly
Poison Setlist:
Look What The Cat Dragged In
Ride The Wind
Your Mama Don’t Dance
Guitar Solo
Fallen Angel
Unskinny Bop
Drum Solo
Every Rose Has Its Thorn
Talk Dirty To Me
Nothin’ But A Good Time
Def Leppard Setlist:
Undefeated
Rocket
High ‘N’ Dry (Saturday Night)
Foolin’
Make Love Like A Man
Animal
Love Bites
Let’s Get Rocked
Gods Of War
Acoustic Medley:
–You Can’t Always Get What You Want
–Where Does Love Go When It Dies
–Now
–When Love & Hate Collide
–Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad
–Two Steps Behind
Women
Bringin’ On The Heartbreak
Switch 625
Hysteria
Armageddon It
Photograph
Pour Some Sugar On Me
———————
Rock Of Ages
Notes:
- Third and final show of the 2012 Rock Of Ages (II) Tour.
- 30th show overall. Shows #1, #10, #20, and #30 have all been in the St. Louis area.
- I missed all but the last three songs of Lita Ford’s set due to heavy traffic going into St. Louis.
- “Let It Go” was dropped and replaced by “High ‘N’ Dry (Saturday Night).”
- First time seeing “High ‘N’ Dry (Saturday Night)” since June 18, 2003 in Moline, IL (show #11).
- The Acoustic Medley was made up of snippets of several songs: a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” Def Leppard’s “Where Does Love Go When It Dies” from Slang, “Now” from X, “When Love & Hate Collide” from Vault, “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” from Adrenalize, and “Two Steps Behind” from Retro Active. For each song, the first verse and chorus were played and then it segued into the next song up until “Two Steps Behind,” which had the full song minus the second verse & chorus played (it went directly from the first chorus into the solo).
- First time seeing the snippet of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” live.
- Three different sets in three shows. First time since the 2002-2003 X tour (or technically, the 2005 Rock Of Ages tour/2011 Mirror Ball tour – though those two had sets that simply removed songs while the rest stayed the same).
- The show took place on Vivian Campbell’s 50th birthday. The crowd sang Happy Birthday to him prior to “Armageddon It.”
- Show #1 at this venue.
- First Def Leppard show in St. Louis since August 10, 2011.
Video:
Review:
My very first Def Leppard concert was in St. Louis, MO on July 30, 1996.
My tenth Leppard show was also in the St. Louis area in 2003. My twentieth? St. Louis, 2007.
So it was only appropriate that my 30th Def Leppard show would also be in St. Louis here in 2012.
Of course, it only happened that way because I skipped Indianapolis the day before since they hadn’t been mixing up the sets as they claimed they would prior to the tour. It was that kind of thing that burned me last year… I spent a lot of money for travel and VIP tickets for shows that offered little in return as far as variety goes.
My goal this year was to spend as little as possible on the band since I didn’t feel like they gave me my money’s worth last year. And I succeeded. I didn’t buy the even more outrageously priced VIP tickets for any of my shows (Kansas City, Chicago, and St. Louis) and still ended up within the VIP Nation guidelines (never being farther back than row 13 and even ending up in the third row in Kansas City). And, as mentioned, I skipped Indianapolis all together.
Mix spending much less money with the longer, better setlists, and I definitely feel like I got my money’s worth this year.
Traffic heading into St. Louis was terrible thanks to bridgework, so we got to the arena after Lita Ford had already started her set. We got to our seats, which were in the 11th row right up against the barricade. The catwalk extended out to row nine, so we were very close to the end. The strange thing is that there was about six or seven feet of empty space at the very end of the catwalk due to the barricade.
Lita sounded great as always and the sound in the arena already sounded better than it did in Chicago a month prior. I wasn’t sure what to expect since I had never been to this venue, as it is fairly new.
Poison took the stage at 7:55 and played their typical set. I know Lep fans complain about a lack of variety, but geez… Every Poison show is quite literally exactly the same. The real amusement during their set came via a guy directly in front of me that decided to go on a beer run. The rows were pretty tight to walk through, so he had the ‘bright’ idea of trying to walk down the row on the seats… And he may have already been pretty tipsy since he accelerated way too quickly and toppled over onto people near the end of the row. I saw the whole thing and turned just in time to see a look comprised of “I hope he’s ok” and “what a fucking idiot” on his wife’s face. His two children, probably in their mid to late teens, were mortified.
It took everything I had not to laugh through the rest of Poison’s set. Especially since I saw a security guard staring hardcore at CC’s 13 inch platform shoes during his excruciating guitar solo.
The end of Poison’s set brought a sigh of relief, as I’ll hopefully never have to see them again. But I thought the same thing after the last show I saw in 2009, so I shouldn’t rule it out. Now that it has happened twice, anything is possible. The end of their set also brought on the stage changeover for Leppard, and that included Vivian’s guitar tech Dave “Wolfie” Wolff being dressed in a nurses outfit, which would be explained later.
Finally, it was time for Def Leppard. Being that this was my final show of the tour, and I have no idea what they’ll be doing next year or when I’ll be seeing them again, I was going into the show with a ‘just have fun’ attitude. No worrying about the sets. Would it have been nice to have something like “Promises” thrown in? Of course! But I wasn’t worried about that.
It helped that this was a Saturday show…
They hit the stage around 9:15 with “Undefeated” and we were off. I enjoyed this one even more since it was quite possibly the last time I would ever hear it live. Joe’s voice cracked a couple of times during this tune, but after that, he sounded great.
“Rocket” followed before they got to the moment I was looking forward to the most. Joe introduced Phil and then they were off into “High ‘N’ Dry (Saturday Night).” I hadn’t seen them play this song since the Moline, IL show in 2003 and it sounded amazing. I especially liked how Viv made the solo his own and really tore it up.
The show went on as usual from there. The shocker of the evening for me is that I even enjoyed “Make Love Like A Man.” It sounded great and hey… Last show of the year and all that, so why not?
The show continued with “Animal,” “Love Bites,” and of course, “Let’s Get Rocked.” The guys were clearly having a blast and the excitement was infectious.
The ‘new’ intro to “Gods Of War” sounded better than it did in Chicago (though I still don’t like it). Any set featuring “Gods Of War” is not to be taken for granted, especially since that song is the highest ranking one on my list of favorites that I still have a chance to see live these days.
Joe started off the acoustic medley with the snippet of the Rolling Stones “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” as he had been doing at some, if not all, shows recently.
As with my other shows, the crowd went nuts when Rick made his way out to the catwalk.
Speaking of which, the place looked quite full. I’m not sure if it was a sellout, since there were tickets available the day of the show, but all sections looked packed and people were seated all the way up to the top.
Rick’s solo at the end of “Switch 625” brought a smile to my face as always, especially when you see Phil and Viv just standing off to the side admiring him. Even when you see it every night, it’s a marvel to watch.
Joe gave his usual anniversary speech after “Hysteria” and had the crowd sing to Happy Birthday to Viv for his 50th. The only other birthday event was Wolfie, Viv’s guitar tech, wearing a nurse’s outfit that said “HAPPY 50TH VIV” on the back of it.
Vivian kicked off “Armageddon It” as always, and Joe once again tried his best at balancing the mic during the vocal break before the final chorus.
Joe nailed the high note on “Photograph” and didn’t sound strained at all. He was a little raspier than my previous shows, but that can be expected at this point of the tour after he was sick. Nor did he struggle with “Rock Of Ages,” for which he amusingly rocked a tiny leopard-skin hat from the audience.
Before I knew it, the show was over. I was rocking my Thin Lizzy shirt for Viv’s 50th, which caught his attention during the goodnights.
All in all, it was a very successful tour for me. The band was playing their best setlists since 2007 and I even managed to get three different setlists in three shows spread over three months.
I put a disc of deeper cuts in for the drive home, subjecting my girlfriend to even more Def Leppard. She’s been my partner in crime for most of the shows over the last two tours since she not only tolerates my love for this band, but embraces it. Which she showed by humming along to tracks like “Desert Song,” “Turn To Dust,” and “Go.”
Which was the perfect end to a perfect night and tour.
Media Review:
In Defense Of The Big, Dumb Rock Show: Def Leppard At Chaifetz Arena
Where were you when you heard Def Leppard’s Pyromania for the first time? If you don’t have an answer to this important question, we appreciate the pageview, but invite to make your way to another story on the site. But if you have an answer and are reading this far, it’s likely you were among the 6,000 locals at Chaiftez Arena on Saturday night for the band’s 2012 Rock of Ages Tour, a suitably singles-heavy compendium of Def Leppard’s career, one that in many respects was defined by their incredible run from 1981 (with the release of the their breakthrough, second album, High ‘n’ Dry) and 1987’s seven-hit album Hysteria.
Songs were produced and albums were released well into the ’90s and ’00s, of course. But with 1992’s descendingly popular Adrenalize, the rise of grunge and alternative rock had sealed the group’s fate as a catalog band. Luckily, they produced enough quality pop rock (disguised as metal) to ride out the years as a band that can consistently fill small arenas and theatres worldwide.
St. Louis, we don’t need to tell you, is a classic rock town, with KSHE-95 a years-long supporter of Saturday’s triple-bill of Lita Ford, Poison and Def Leppard. The Brew100.3 FM has come onto the scene more recently, but basically has given what feels like tenth of its playlist alone over to Poison and Def Leppard. So the well was primed for a good turnout at Chaiftez, with an audience suitably aged between 35-50, who offered their own impromptu and enjoyable fashion show, which took place in the arena’s walkways. (Gentlemen, some of those fitted graphic tees… oh, my.)
The night’s opener, Lita Ford, was missed by this show attendee due to poor planning and nothing else. But an 8:05 arrival meant that Poison’s first song was just kicking in. And here’s where things get interesting: Back when Poison was pumping out the hits, you couldn’t look at your phone and call up the group’s recent concert playbills from a site like setlist.fm. But today you can, so it was easy to determine that the band—including all four classic-era members, including reality TV star Bret Michaels—were going to play between seven and 11 songs, with a good chance that “Unskinny Bop,” “Talk Dirty and To Me” and the twin-ballads of “Something to Believe In” and “Every Rose Has its Thorn” would be on the list.
Also featured: a drum solo, a guitar solo, a hidden keyboardist and several mentions by Michaels that the band’s been around for 26 years and they still appreciate the annual support of St. Louis. With his American flag pants, Michaels aggressively worked the catwalk extension and generally kept up an energetic set of the group’s cotton-candy-lite hits, all of which went over predictably well.
Def Leppard’s set, too, was all but written by the night prior’s set, at the Klipsch Music Center in Noblesville, IN. With slight variations, the group mixed in some “newer” cuts alongside the classics from High ‘n’ Dry and Pyromania, with “Foolin’” and “High and Dry (Saturday Night)” going over positively. There was a mid-set break in which all of five members sat on a road case at the end of catwalk with four acoustic guitars, joined by the shakers of drummer Rick Allen, who enjoyed several huge ovations as the evening wore on. That particularly was true on the instrumental “Switch 625,” which allowed each member of the group a moment or two of instrumental shine. Having lost an arm early in Def Lep’s career, Allen’s turn, of course, was the best-received, with several Go-Pro-style cameras almost putting you into Allen’s trigger-heavy drum kit, his feet flying through an energetic solo.
That piece came within a thick pack of hits, like the slightly-drowsy “Women,” the old-school “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak” and “Hysteria,” which was set up by singer Joe Elliott’s introduction of several key dates in the band’s history, culminating with news that it was singer Vivian Campell’s 50th birthday. As they’e doing throughout the tour, Def Leppard closed with three singalongs: the FM-radio staple “Photograph,” the international strip-club anthem “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” and then, after a short break, their sole encore number, “Rock of Ages,” tipped by the sample, gunter glieben glauchen globen, and the cowbell punctuation of Allen. After “Rock,” the band stayed onstage for a lengthy round of goodbye waves and high-fives, at which point, a closing-credits reel began to play on the video monitors, listing all their crew members alongside archival video. The end of the gig played very much to the long-running narrative that the group’s just a rock band, a hardworking, crowdpleasing one without a lot of artifice.
With relatively restrained light show and only the mid-set, six-song acoustic medley as a set-breaker, the band played things safely, but with all the needed elements in place. Nearly two-dozen songs appeared, all played faithfully, if a bit thinner than their original, highly produced album versions. Elliott’s voice had moments of audio reinforcement from the back-of-house, with reports indicating some vocals issues over the years. While guitarist Phil Collen was shirtless through the set, another Def Lep-must, bassist Rick Savage, didn’t pop off his top until after the encore, an interesting, late move. (And tuning into to KSHE after the show, the station smartly programmed nothing but Def Lep and Poison until midnight, giving fans an immediate chance for nostalgia on their drives back to Dupo and Warrenton. And South City.)
Aside from Collen—who appears to be doing a thousand crunches a day—the band’s aged a touch, just as the fans have; Elliott’s soft-fabric, rocker jumpsuit kinda proved that as much as anything. But the joy of a show like this is to tap into collective memories, and the band’s use of the video board during “Photograph,” displaying a ton of pics from through the years, was the most-clear acknowledgement of that.
To answer the lede’s question: I first heard Pyromania in the summer of 1983, when invited across the street to a neighbor’s pool. The teenaged girl of the house, a few years my senior, slapped the tape into the jambox and it was a Leppard afternoon for the next 45 minutes; it’s “Foolin’” that stuck in my head that day, though “Photograph” is the clear keeper all these years later. Took 29 years to finally see/hear those cuts live. And, yeah, it was worth the wait. Totally.
by Thomas Crone @ STLMag.com, 2012
TurnToDust86 