Watch Def Leppard Play Three Straight Classics On Kimmel
Rise up! Gather round! Rock this place to the ground! Def Leppard, all-time masters of glammed-out stadium-level riffage, are back to active duty. Tomorrow, the Rock And Roll Hall Of Famers will release Diamond Star Halos, their first new album in seven years. Presumably, when Def Lep showed up on Jimmy Kimmel Live, they were there to promote that record. But the band’s regular on-air performance has not yet appeared on the Kimmel YouTube channel. Instead, we will have to content ourselves with a clip of Leppard cranking out three glorious arena bangers back-to-back-to-back. I suppose we’ll make do.
The Kimmel show has a longstanding habit of inviting bands to play extra songs for the live crowds and for the next-morning internet audience. Sometimes, bands use that opportunity to play a bunch more new songs, but that is not the Def Leppard way. Def Leppard, one of the most deeply satisfying touring acts on the planet, knows that they’re still packing arenas because of the diamond-plated bangers on 1983’s Pyromania and 1987’s Hysteria. Last night, they gave the people what they wanted.
The Def Leppard Kimmel bonus set was “Rock Of Ages,” “Hysteria,” and “Pour Some Sugar On Me,” and there are not too many currently active stadium bands who can come up with a three-song run to match that. Leppard played that tiny Kimmel studio like it was Wembley. Only bassist Rick Savage still has the fully floofy hair, but this band has had the same lineup for the past 30 years — famously keeping drummer Rick Allen in the band even after he lost his arm — and these are all remarkably well-preserved rich middle-aged gentlemen. On Kimmel, they had a lot of scarves onstage. They also kicked a lot of ass. Watch them do it below.
Diamond Star Halos is out 5/27 via UMe. Next month, Leppard will head out on tour with Mötley Crüe, Poison, and Joan Jett. I’ve never seen the Crüe, and Bret Michaels’ voice is fully shot now, but I can tell you that Def Leppard and Joan Jett are both transcendent live performers and that you should go.