Def Leppard never wanted to release live albums. At least that is what I remember them saying years and years ago. Was it something like “a band only releases live albums when they’ve run out of ideas”. Don’t quote me on that, that is something I swear I heard them say a very long time ago. And for 31 years, Def Leppard never officially released a live album. A live video, yes. But never an album until around 2011 with ‘Mirrorball’. And it would be another 9 years before we ever got a live show from their Early Years! But thanks to the box set ‘The Early Years’, we finally had a live show from 1980. It doesn’t get much earlier than that for them. It was recorded at New Theatre in Oxford on April 26, 1980. The show is completely unedited and as is (so they say) and I would believe it.
But it wasn’t my first early show of Def Leppard. I have a bootleg from a show at BBC’s Paris Theatre, London, England, 22nd August 1979 and some recorded at the Reading Festival, Reading, England, 24th August 1980 and it was called “Live at the Top”. That was my first taste of early Lep and what a taste it was. This show is even better and sees a hungry, raw Def Leppard giving it their all. There are four historical pieces on here as we get a liver version of Good Morning Freedom which the band had never released, an early version of Lady Strange from an album that hadn’t come out yet and two songs that would wind up completely different when they were finally released on two different albums. The show was first released in that box set, then they decided to release a vinyl of the show as well which I have both versions as you can see in the last picture.
2 Loud 2 Old Music 