Monday, February 28, 2005
Confessions Of A Twenty Year Lep Fan - The Early Years
Miles Run: 0 because Mother Nature is a bitch
Other Exercise: 200 and some stomach crunches
and 50 leg lifts - God I'm such a slacker
Weight Loss: Who fuckin cares?
I still don't own a scale.
Now on to the real business of this post....
Here it is.....the first installment of the posts I know you have all been waiting for. lol My Lep adventures. Yippie!
Let's start by turning back the clock to the very early 80s (frightening I know. LOL). I was around the age of 7 and my brother who is 10 years older than me had a copy of the High N Dry album. I can vaguely remember hearing him play it and liking it but I never really paid much attention to who it was. By the time Pyromania had come out, my brother had moved out and a foster kid my parents agreed to take moved in. He had Pyro on a cassette and after one listen to Rock Of Ages, I was hooked.
Fast forward to the late 80s. A few years had gone by and it was now the summer before my freshman year in high school. By this time I had pretty much forgotten about Def Leppard aside from the old stuff they played on the radio from time to time. I don't even remember hearing the news about Rick Allen's accident. Anyway, I was out by the pool in my parents' backyard one day and the song Animal came on the radio. It was an instant hit with me but because I misheard what the DJ said, I thought Van Halen was the artist. I couldn't believe that was right because it didn't sound anything like them but what did I know. lol
Later on during that summer, I was babysitting my nephew and happened to have MTV on. I was in the other room when I heard a song come on that I hadn't heard before (can you tell this was back when MTV was still at least somewhat Music Television? lol). The song immediately caught my attention and I went into the room where the tv was to watch the video. The first thing I saw was one of the most gorgeous looking guys I had laid my eyes on with this voice to die for standing on a stage in a pair of shredded jeans and a cut up t-shirt. Hello Mr. Elliott and Pour Some Sugar On Me! After that, I became a Lep lifer. I sought out just about anything and everything I could find that was Def Leppard from that point on.
I don't remember when it was exactly but I found out the Leps were going to be performing in Iowa City (about a two or so hour drive from my hometown). It must have been at some point during the last leg of the US Hysteria tour because someone had told me they had already played Ames. When I heard this news, I wanted more than anything to go. So did one of my friends but we had a small problem - neither of us were old enough to drive. I begged my mom to take us knowing that she was willing to go to those kinds of things even if she the music wasn't her favorite. Our luck was shitty though. She told me that she couldn't take us because it was a weeknight and it was too far to drive when she had to get up early in the morning. Fuck Fuck Fuckity Fuck Fuck! Ok, I thought. There has to be another way around this. Ah ha! My brother! Yah, that's the ticket! He likes rock music and concert going. Surly if I offer to pay for the gas, his ticket, and a t-shirt, he'll take us. WRONG! Not only did he say no, he told my mom that I probably shouldn't be allowed to go because the band might do something lewd on stage. Geez, thanks a lot big brother of mine. BASTARD! That squashed any and all hope of seeing them on the Hysteria tour. The next chance I would get wouldn't come until I was a freshman in college.
In 1991, I was a junior in high school and I will never forget that fateful January day when I learned of Steve Clark's death. I was standing at my locker getting my books out for the first couple hours of my day when one of my friends came over and broke the news. I had never met the man or any of the other guys but my heart absolutely sank for the band and their families. I also thought there could be a very good chance that would also be the end of the band. As sad as I would have been to see them go, I would have also understood their reasons for it. When the announcement came out that they would be releasing Adrenalize during the first part of 1992, I was elated. For the first time in my life, I actually made a point of purchasing an album on its release date. I can't tell you how many times I ended up listening to it in the first few months that I had it but I know it was a lot. It was in my collection I took with me the first time I visited France and England and even though I had quite a few albums with me, I think Adrenalize was the only one that saw the light of day. lol
The next ten years saw release of a few more albums (Retro Active, Slang, Vault, Euphoria) and a couple of tours. Finally I was able to see them live and boy were they worth the wait! I had yet to meet them though. Hell, I didn't even know that it was a possibility but that was ok. I felt like one of the luckiest people alive just being able to see them perform given everything that had happened to the band over the past ten years.
Otay, I'm going to leave it there for now because I've got a bowl of Ant's superfantastico curry waiting for me.
Tomorrow's post - The Online Years
Til next time kiddies.....
Knocked Off By The Fashion Diva
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