DEF LEPPARD, CHEAP TRICK and THE GALVATRONS rocked Melbourne, Australia, November 2008 !!!

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DEF LEPPARD came to Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena on November 3rd 2008 and brought the house down. Fabulously supported by CHEAP TRICK and THE GALVATRONS, it was certainly a night to remember. Unfortunately, Rod Laver Arena’s sound system just couldn’t cope with DEF LEPPARD for the most part and detracted from the quality of their performance (more later).


Formed in 2007, THE GALVATRONS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Galvatrons, http://www.myspace.com/thegalvatrons) opened the show with a handful of good hard rockin’ numbers. There is considerable potential with this band and it has been suggested that they just need their own catchy song that brings together the most significant influences on them to climb to the top. Nothing wrong with these 4 guys and they did a good job of warming up the crowd for a half hour or so.

It would appear that CHEAP TRICK (http://www.cheaptrick.com/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheap_trick) could have been a last minute withdrawal because of lead singer Robin Zander’s throat infection. No sign of troubles here with the group pounding out the best of the best with the likes of “The Flame”, “Surrender”, “I Want You to Want Me” and the trademark “Dream Police” just to name a few. Solid work by Tom Petersson on bass guitar and Bun E. Carlos on drums, with Rick Nielsen playing bludgeoning lead guitar while waltzing all over the stage and throwing handfuls of guitar picks into the crown. It seems that Robin’s voice lasted enough to perform all but one song but what was delivered was ample and perfect. Thanks for Robin sticking it out.

The night’s sensation and top billing DEF LEPPARD (http://www.defleppard.com/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Def_Leppard) caused the crowd to erupt and reach such a high that there just wasn’t a way to come down! Truly a superb hard rocking exhibition of just how a band should translate such a formidable collection of songs across 3 decades into a live performance. They played the new, the old, the classics, the ballads, everything was there for an unforgettable experience. Starting off with an opening pair of all time best songs “Rocket” and “Animal” to set the scene, they entered The Sparkle Lounge with “C'mon C'Mon” and then went back to “Foolin'”. A mid-set of variations, had the crowd involved and loving it with “Make Love Like a Man”, “Nine Lives”, “Love Bites”, “Two Steps Behind” as an acoustic piece and a full version of “Bringin' On The Heartbreak & Switch625” carrying with the acoustics initially and then exploding the masterpiece that it is. The band continued the up beat trend with more fine selections from the Hysteria and Pyromania CDs “Love And Affection’, “Hysteria”, “Armageddon It”, “Photograph”, “Pour Some Sugar On Me” and “Rock Of Ages”. The crowd was given a quick breather with the ballad “When Love And Hate Collide” and then the most appropriate finale with “Let’s Get Rocked”. A huge 17 songs done over more than a solid hour and a half.

Joe Elliott’s lead vocals were unwavering, both Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell were scintillating on guitars, Rick Savage was slick on bass and Rick Allen was fabulous on drums. A very neat and tidy job.

But even though DEF LEPPARD put on an outstanding performance, it was the stadium’s sound system that was left wanting. Their opening two songs suffered quite badly due to bass overload causing uncontrolled speaker box resonances and Joe’s vocals then becoming muffled by the side-effects making him very distorted. The problem seemed to disappear by the time “Foolin’” came up but it was back later in the show to provide some disturbing results. On numerous occasions it looked like Joe was struggling with a malfunctioning wireless microphone (dead batteries?) and at times appeared to be trying to get the attention of the stage crew for another one, but he continued on doing what he does best. A number of glances over at the sound and lighting consols saw nobody trying to trouble shoot the problem. A team of 4 people and several computers were all motionless at the controls as if it were all under control. Clearly, the sound mixing engineers were unaware that overdriving the bass (beyond amplifier clipping) produces all sorts of unwanted intermodulation distortion products and other undesirables that in this case swamped over Joe’s voice. The system just couldn’t cope. The answer is simple, back off the bass so that the whole system can work properly and provide a “cleaner” sound. It isn’t rocket science and those people in control should know this and be able to react to remove the problem. This is what sound checks are for! There were no signs of this at the Ozzy Osbourne concert held at this venue on 15 March 2008 and the sound quality was amazing then.

Aside from the tragic sound problems on the night, it was one mind-blowing concert.

All photographs by GW taken at Rod Laver Arena.

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