Flashbacks, Courtesy of Def Leppard

Earlier this week I went to a concert with some friends here in Canberra. A Melbourne band called the Galvatrons were the opener (sounded like they were channeling Van Halen - specifically "Jump"). The group I really went to see was Cheap Trick. And the headliners, Def Leppard.

Funny, because this is the second time I've seen Def Leppard in concert because they happened to be playing on a three-band ticket featuring a group I really wanted to see.

The first time? 1980. Heavy Metal Sunday at Hara Arena, an ice-hockey rink in Dayton, Ohio. Tickets were $6.50. Headliners were Judas Priest, on their British Steel tour. The special guests, the band I wanted to see, were the Scorpions. And Def Leppard, a bunch of young kids from Sheffield, England, who had just released their first album, were the warm-up act.

So the concert was kind of a flashback for me. I kept on casting my mind back to that earlier concert, to the friends that I went with, high school buddies, some of whom I'm still in touch with, some that have headed off to places like Texas and New Mexico and I've lost contact with. Ah, nostalgia.

Def Leppard themselves were quite different! In 1980 they were unknowns; I'd heard one song by them on the local rock station. By now of course, they've become rock veterans. They had their period in the mid-1980s where they were arguably the Biggest Band In the World. You couldn't turn on rock radio in 1083 without hearing Def Leppard - their video for "Photograph" even knocked Michael Jackson's song "Beat It" off of the #1 Most Requested on MTV.

Now they have a new album out - and they played four or five songs off of it. But much of their show focused on the classics. The crowd was interesting, too. True for other long-lived rock bands I've seen like Pink Floyd back in 1994, there was a mix of young people - teens, college age - who seemed to react more strongly to the new stuff. And there were the over-30 crowd - many SIGNIFICANTLY over 30, by decades - who didn't know the new songs but were there for "Rock of Ages" and other old classics.

And I have to say, even though I was really there to see Cheap Trick and Rick Nielson's five-necked guitar, Def Leppard blew them out of the water. They still have it. Joe Elliott really knows how to work a crowd. They never missed a beat. It was a great evening, all the better for including pleasant memories.