Well-known hard rock and heavy metal band Def Leppard recently announced on their official website that they will be “taking over the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas for an exclusive nine show residency entitled VIVA Hysteria!” Performances are scheduled to begin on Friday, March 22 at The Joint. The show will run with dates in the following four weeks, before closing its doors on Wednesday, April 10.
According to the official website, fans can mostly expect to hear their popular album, Hysteria. The album was released in 1987, and quickly went multiplatinum. To this day the album has sold more than twelve million copies worldwide, and it noted to be the band’s first real proof of huge success in the music industry. “Things like Run Riot, Don’t Shoot Shotgun and Love and Affection got left by the wayside because of the popularity of other songs that, to be frank, if you don’t play them live, you don’t get out of the building alive,” Def Leppard front man Joe Elliott told USA Today. “The oddest thing is going to be doing Pour Some Sugar On Me fifth. In many respects, it’s like the Troggs opening with Wild Thing.”
The band has announced that it also plans to perform a segment including other popular hit songs such as, “Hello America,” “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak” and “Photograph.”
“We’re very happy to be part of what I call the first wave of rockers to take Vegas back from the lounge singers — Wayne Newton and his type,” Elliot said. Vice president of booking at AEG Live, Bobby Reynolds explained, “In Las Vegas, you have to give people something they can’t see anywhere else.”
Def Leppard is made up of five members: Joe Elliot on vocals, Rick Savage on bass, Rick Allen on drums, Phil Collen on guitar and Vivian Campbell on guitar. The group has been together for thirty-five years and originated in the United Kingdom. To date, the band has sold more than 100 million records across the world.
Fans have even more to be excited about, as Elliot told USA Today that the band plans to use their off days to work on writing new music… surely meaning that a new album can be expected sometime in the near future. “The downtime will not go to waste,” he says. “Two of the guys in the band live in Dublin and the other three live in California. This is a great opportunity for a band that has decided to live all over the world to be in one room at one time, to look each other in the eyes and to come up with ideas.”
Tickets for the nine performances go on sale to the general public beginning Friday, November 16 at 10 a.m. With such a short stretch of shows and a large following of fans, tickets are expected to sell out quickly. The band notes that the venue is very intimate, allowing all in attendance to feel like they are a part of the show. “The furthest seat from us is 155 feet,” said Elliot.
