Tag: From the Inside

Def Leppard – ‘Hard Rock Cafe: Singapore, Malaysia – October 26, 1995’ – (Bootleg DVD) – DVD Review (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

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On October 26, 1995, Def Leppard played an acoustic show in Singapore, Malaysia at the Hard Rock Cafe. The show was filmed and broadcast by Channel V as part of their V Series concerts. Channel V is their version of MTV. Six songs from the show were later released on the Limited Edition of the UK ‘Slang’ album.

This bootleg DVD I have was recorded from teh show on the Television. It is a little grainy because TVs were not 4k back then. The sound quality is really great. There is an audience recording of this show out there somewhere that has two additional unreleased songs (at the time). The two songs were from the upcoming ‘Slang’ album. The songs were “All I Want Is Everything” and “Where Does Love Go When It Dies”…I’d like to hear those two pre-Slang songs.

The stage is small and intimate. Vivian Campbell, Rick Savage, Joe Elliott and Phil Collen are lined-up and everyone has acoustic guitar…welll Rick has a bass (not acoustic though). Rick Allen is banging away behind them on the drums. They kick it off with a high energy performance of “Pour Some Sugar on Me”. The band is having fun and the crowd is loving it. Between each song, we get short little interviews and I normally don’t like the show to be interrupted, but this was a TV show, not an actual concert so I can be okay with it.

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Def Leppard – ‘Retro Active’ (1993) – Album Review (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

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The band was now five albums in but it had been 12 years total. Not a great track record. They wanted to not have 4 years or more between albums again so it was decided to release a compilation album to hold fans over until the next release. But this wasn’t any ordinary greatest hits compilation, nope…that would’ve been too easy. The band decided to pull together a bunch of rare tracks and B-sides and put them together on one release…but still…not so simple as they re-recorded parts, remixed others and gave us a solid collection of songs from their career over the span of 1984 up to 1993. It also gives us some of the last recordings of the late, great Steve Clark.

The album would be called ‘Retro Active’ and released on October 5, 1993. It would spawn three singles including “Two Steps Behind”, “Miss You In A Heartbeat” and The Sweet cover for “Action”. Both “Two Steps Behind” and “Miss You In A Heartbeat” would go Top 40 and the album would go on to sell over 1,000,000 copies in the U.S. alone. Heck, even the opening track, “Desert Storm” would hit the U.S. Mainstream Rock Chart at #12 without even being released technically as a single.

One really cool aspect of the album is the cover which was designed by Hugh Syme and Nels Israelson. The image is a photographed of a woman sitting in front of a vanity mirror. However, she is positioned just so, along with other items, so that when you moved the album further away from you it turned in to a skull. A really cool concept

The album opens up with an outtake from the ‘Hysteria’ album called “Desert Song”. It was originally recorded as an instrumental and is the last song released by the band to feature Steve Clark on guitar. In fact, it is noted as the only song in the catalog to feature both Steve and his replacement Vivian Campbell who did some background vocals on the song. I know I said it was originally an instrumental and it was, but lyrics were written when the pulled the song back out after forgetting about it for years. The song is about Mick Ronson who was dying of cancer around this time. It is a killer opening track, hard hitting and a really cool Clark tone to it which is so missed. The bass work is great on this as well as the guitars. To me, the song sounds more like it would’ve fit on ‘Slang’ then on ‘Hysteria’. A truly fantastic track.

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My Sunday Song – “From the Inside” by Def Leppard

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For My Sunday Song #151, we are now going to spend the next 10 weeks exploring some of my favorite Def Leppard songs.  These won’t be the hits you have heard on the radio or in concert (okay, some may have been played live, and one might be a single but that is it).  These will be songs that I think are some of their best deep cuts and something I think is worth checking out if you want to get a better understanding of what the band is about.

The first song is off the 1993 album, ‘Retroactive’ and it was the B-Side to the song “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” off ‘Adrenalize’ from 1992.  The song is called “From the Inside” and was written by Joe Elliott.

The song is one of the darkest songs they have ever written or performed.  The theme of the song is about drugs and addiction and the point of view of the song is actually from the drugs.  The drugs describe to the user what it will do them and how it will take them up high and drag them to their lowest of lows.  With lyrics such as…

And I’ll laugh while you’re up there 
And I’ll laugh when you’re down 
Though your screams break the silence 
Oh, they won’t make a sound 

…it is quite disturbing and sadly, so true.  Written around the time I think Steve Clark died, my guess is that Joe was inspired by what happened with Steve write this track.

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