Def Leppard were trying to keep product moving to keep the fans happy between albums. They didn’t want the gaps between albums, that tended to be rather long, to not have anything come out. So, on October 5, 1993, they released another VHS video and this one was called ‘Visualize’. My copy is on DVD which came in 2001, but the original was a VHS only edition. It contained promo videos, interviews and concert footage and it won a 1993 Metal Edge Readers’ Choice Award for “Best Home Video.” It ended up selling only around 50,000 copies in the States. I know I had it in VHS, got rid of that when the DVD came out and bought it again. On DVD, it is coupled with another VHS only release called ‘Video Archive’ which we will talk about later.
When you start the DVD, it makes you pick which language you want and it was so tempting to pick something other than English, but I went with the English version since I am uneducated American who only knows one language. When you click “Visualize” it starts out with some live footage and an interview short with the band, first Joe Elliott then Vivian Campbell, Phil Collen, Rick Allen and then Rick Savage. Good to see all the guys getting face time.
Video wise, the first one is off “Hysteria” and was the final single called “Rocket”. The reason it is here is the video ‘Historia’ was released prior to “Rocket” coming out as a video single. The “Rocket” video is a great one with the band in a warehouse with TVs all around showing clips of rockets and the band’s favorite artist that inspired them like Bowie and Elton John for just a few. The next video was for “Switch 625” and this was done only as a tribute to the passing of the band’s great guitarist, Steve Clark. He has been missed. The video is prefaced by a Japanese interview where Steve talks and jokes around. The band then talks about what he means to them. Very touching tribute.
The tour for Def Leppard’s ‘Pyromania’ album started on February 9th, 1983 in London, England and would go on for 11 months, travel the world on and on December 18th, 1983 in Dortmund, West Germany. The tour was massive and a huge success. They even recorded the show at the L.A. Forum on the September 11th which was released as Live at the L.A. Forum which we reviewed last week. But being a such a fan of the band, I like to collect as many shows as I can get and I found one from a month earlier that was recorded in Seattle, Washington on August 3, 1983. Yes, it is a bootleg, but it is a radio broadcast so they sound is going to be pretty good…and it isn’t bad.
The show as recorded at the Seattle Center Colesium and it is the EXACT same setlist as the LA Forum show the band released. But the show is slightly different and the sound doesn’t sound the same as the other show so it does sound like a different show despite no variations in the setlist. First off, Joe Elliott’s voice is super high in this mix and the guitars are pushed a little to the back. Some songs I notice the bass is even higher then the guitars. The crowd noise isn’t as prominent so sometimes you forget they are there except when Joe interacts with them. The set I have was released in 2022 and on a 2 CD set split identical as my vinyl splits the LA Forum show.
The show kicks off with the air raid sirens, bombs bursting in the background and machine guns firing and it sounds way better and clearer then the Forum show. There is a gap in the track and and it makes it feel like the intro was not even a part of the show. Then the band goes in to “Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop)”, Joe’s vocals are a little rough and super loud along with the background vocals while the guitars don’t have the crunch or power you’d hope. But the energy is high and the tempo is really quick. “Rock Brigade” is up next and it sounds a little muddy and again, Joe’s a little rough around the edges and is sounds a little shot. The solo is ripping and they stick to the original song with not much extra added.
Def Leppard had made it big time with their third album ‘Pyromania’. The tour was huge. It traveled the world and saw millions of fans flock to their shows. They were on fire and the flame was growing hotter and hotter. There had been no shows released until the Deluxe Edition of Pyromania saw the light of day in 2009. That was the first time we had a taste of Live Leppard from 1983. Of course, this was only on CD. It wasn’t until the release of the giant box set ‘The Collection, Vol. 1’ in 2018 that we were able to get this on vinyl which is what we are reviewing here today.
The show was night two at the L.A. Forum on September 11, 1983 and thanks to MTV and Def Leppard’s high profile videos, the crowd was massive and the energy was high and electric. The band was in fine form and ready to rock. This show had been bootlegged heavily back in the day so now we get a freshly mixed and wonderfully sounding show. This would be the first live show Leppard had ever released that wasn’t a video. As a fan, we were thrilled to finally get an early show with Steve Clark on guitar. Now, since then we have a handful of live shows from that era and Leppard had released several newer shows, but this was the first one to see a CD release that we could pop in our car or home stereo and turn it up to 11.
To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the bands debut album, Def Leppard put together quite an impressive box set. Released on March 20, 2020, “The Early Years 79-81” box set was full of goodies. Not only did we get the first two albums, ‘On Through the Night’ and ‘High ‘N’ Dry’, but we got the live album ‘When the Walls Come Tumbling Down’ which we have alread talked about. The fourth disc, “Too Many Jitterbugs’ title is actually a line from the song “Glad I’m Alive”, was chock full of Rare songs and B-Sides as well as Single Edits and remixes. For someone new collecting Lep stuff, this is a great disc. For someone like myself, I had most everything already in some form, but not quite everything which is why this is so great.
The set kicks off with the three songs from The Def Leppard E.P. which are “Ride Into the Sun”, “Getcha Rocks Off” and “The Overture”. The first track is “Ride Into the Sun”. The song is very different than the two other versions of the song released later that are more familiar to most fans. The first version was a B-Side on the “Hysteria” single and the last version was on the album ‘Retroactive’. The B-Side version was my favorite until I heard the original which is now my favorite version of this song. It is the true intention of the song and it has a better sound and feel. The guitar and drum work are awesome and Joe sounded so young and fresh. The guitar solo was better and an overall more satisfying experience. It is the more rock version of the song and pure Def Leppard at their best.
Track two on Side One is “Getcha Rocks Off”. This track was re-recorded for their first full length album “On Through the Night”, but the title was changed to just “Rocks Off”. I think this song sounds better as well over the re-recorded version. It doesn’t have the fake crowd noise or the weird guitar sounds that are thrown in needlessly. The E.P. version is also a more hard rock sounding song.
“The Overture” is an epic song at over 7 minutes long. It was also re-recorded for the ‘On Through The Night Album’ like “Getcha Rocks Off”. Again, due to how amazing this record sounds, I prefer this song over the version on “On Through the Night”. What I love about the song is the changing tempos, the great double guitars of Steve & Pete. The song takes you on a great musical journey.
“Wasted”, but this single is different than the album version which is odd. It had never been released on an album until the release of The Collection, Volume 1 (2018). it sounds more raw and like an early demo of the studio track or something. It is still great though. The same with “Hello America” as it is a single version that isn’t the album version either. I’m not sure the reason behind this, but I like different versions so I’m all good.
After that we get a previously unreleased version of “Rock Brigade”. The song is a very early version of the song which lacks the punch of the guitars on the “On Through the Night’ version and the drums don’t sound like Rick Allen’s and for that it the lesser track. But you can hear the promise of what was to come. Then the coolest song they’ve never released on a studio album, “Glad I’m Alive”. It is a fast paced, groove-tastic piece of brilliant rock that is such a shame they never did anything with this as it is perfection. It is also the namesake for this album. “Good Morning Freedom” is a B-Side to “Hello America” and opens with some great drumming from young Rick Allen. His drumming throughout is fantastically slamming. Another rocker and another gem from this band. It is more razor sharp guitars cutting through those Elliott vocals.
The rest of the album are single edits and remixes. We get the single edit for the opening track for ‘High ‘N’ Dry’ called “Let It Go” which chops 30 seconds off the album version. It cuts out a lot of the guitar wankering which is what makes the original so bad ass. Then we get a single edit for “Switch 625” and the only I can see that is different is it removed some of the fade that comes off of “Bringing on the Heartbreak”.
The next two tracks are the single edit for “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak” which knocks off about 40 seconds from the original and again, doesn’t make it better. It also has a cleaner ending rather than the fade in to “Switch 625”. The next track is the original version of “Me And My Wine” and it is the version that is the B-Side to “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak”. It has more punch and more of a rawness to it than the later remix version. I like it a lot! A punk attitude with dash of hard rock.
The final two tracks are the Remixes of “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak” and “Me and My Wine” that were on the 1984 re-issue of the ‘High & Dry’ album. The remixes were done with added synthesizers and piano overdubs to make it sound more like what was done on ‘Pyromania’. which was out at the time of the re-issue. The remix doesn’t make them better, but they are already great songs so fine, whatever they felt was necessary. It did cause the album to sell a lot more copies so all good.
And that wraps this one up. Being a compilation of tracks, I wouldn’t delete anything on this one. A lot of great tracks with only a couple I didn’t already have in the collection. It is a lot like the bootleg I have “First Strike” which we already reviewed, but better sounding. It is nice having the songs all on one disc rather than spread out on singles or E.P.’s so for that it is worth buying. My Overall Score is a 5.0 out of 5.0 Stars as you can’t go wrong with The Early years of Def Leppard.
While touring in support of their debut album, ‘On Through the Night’, Def Leppard opened for one of the biggest bands at the time, AC/DC. Famed producer, Robert John “Mutt” Lange, who produced AC/DC’s massive album “Back in Black”, took notice of the band and he was very impressed. So much so, he agreed to be their producer for the band’s sophomore album ‘High ‘N’ Dry’. A move that would change the course of history for this band and catapult them in to the stratosphere of rock stardom. But first, they had to do an album and this album saw the band head to a more melodic phase, however, the edge and rawness of the debut was still present.
The songwriting was more refined, everything seemed more purposefully composed, it was cleaner yet it was still powerful, engaging and after over 40 years with it, it is one of the best rock & roll albums of all time. Well…it is for me. The band, who was Joe Elliott, Steve Clark, Rick Savage, Rick Allen and Pete Willis, recorded the album between March and June of 1981 and it was released a very short time later on July 11, 1981. A short 16 months after the debut. Man, if they could’ve only kept that pace of releases, how much could they have released over the years. The album would go to #38 in the U.S. and #26 in the UK. Not a massive success, but enough of one thanks to the ballad “Brinin’ on the Heartbreak” which saw massive airplay on MTV, that the band was setup nicely for the next album.
Their third album ‘Pyromania’ was so big, so successful and so amazing, that ‘High ‘N’ Dry’ was re-released in 1984 with 2 additional tracks. One was a re-mix of “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak” which added synthesizers and piano overdubs to make it sound more like what was done on ‘Pyromania’. The other track was “Me & My Wine” which was the B-Side of the original release of “Bringin On the Heartbreak”. It too was re-mixed for a more modern sound. This re-release helped sell more albums which has since seen the album go double platinum. They even did new videos for it with Phil Collen on guitar who was not on this album at all as Pete Willis was at the time. The copy we are reviewing today is the original release without the 2 new tracks, the way it should be heard. Let’s get to it.
For My Sunday Song #126, the instrumental we will be covering is “Switch 625” by none other than Def Leppard. For a band that is not noted for doing instrumentals, when they did one, they definitely got it right. The song is off the band’s second album ‘High & Dry’ and is still played today in concert as a tribute to the writer of the song, the late, great Steve Clark.
The song bleeds effortlessly after “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak” with such a smooth transition you would swear it is part of the song. The long, unedited version of the song. The song itself is a beautiful representation of all that was great about the god-given gift of Steve’s guitar playing.
I love the dual guitars battling it out. I can picture Pete & Steve going back and forth and playing off each other (now I am making an assumption that Pete played on the recorded version). It also has such a great melody and if it had lyrics would have made for another great Def Leppard ballad I am sure.
In fact, producer Mutt Lange wanted to add lyrics but after battling out with Joe Elliot, no lyrics were added. Joe felt the song was perfect the way it was and no need to mess it up with his voice (of course that isn’t a direct quote, I’m making assumptions but the story itself is true).
2 Loud 2 Old Music 