For this episode, Deke invited me to join him as we decided to focus on a Top 10 ranking of what some of our favourite albums would be. I had a couple of surprises with his picks which was really cool according to Deke (a couple weren’t really rock) whereas Deke feels no one will be surprised by his picks. The only rule was that they had to be albums in our collections. Who knows maybe down the road we’ll do another episode. (as there are many fantastic debut records still out there)
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On June 21, 2019, Def Leppard released the second set in their four volume The Collection box set. There is a CD and a vinyl version of the set and my set is the vinyl version. It is 10 LPs and contains the albums, ‘Adrenalize’, ‘Retro Active’, ‘Slang’ and ‘Euphoria’. It also contains 2 Rarities collections called Volume 2 and Volume 3. Since we have already discussed the albums in this set, it is time to start with the rare tracks now and first up is ‘Rarities Two’ of the set. It is a 2 LP release and contains some rare tracks and rare live performances as well. All the songs are from the years surrounding these four albums.
LP 1:
It kicks off with a demo of the song “Tonight” from the ‘Adrenalize’ album. The song sounds like the final version with minor exceptions. Musically, it isn’t fully flushed out, the “oohs-aahs” aren’t full gang style yet and pretty simple sounding. Still a lot to get it to the final stages, but cool to hear an early version of the song.
Next, we get a demo of “When Love & Hate Collide” from the greatest hits album “Vault”. Is another stripped down version of the final song. I don’t like the guitar tone on this one as there is this little high pitched riff throughout that annoys the crap out of me. They definitely improve on that for the final version. Joe’s vocals are not high in the mix and have a weird echo, but the essence of the song is there.
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.
2 Loud 2 Old Music 