The Minnesota State Fair Grandstand kicked off its sold-out opening weekend Thursday with the world’s biggest band (to include a one-armed drummer), Def Leppard.
Thanks to continued airings of the British pop metal group’s work on rock radio — and in strip clubs, where their songs are passed down from generation to generation, like folk music — Def Leppard can still fill large venues and drew 13,007 fans to the Grandstand.
In many ways, Def Leppard is the ideal fit for the Great Minnesota Get-Together. They make music that sounds like summer, fried food and stomach-churning rides. It’s a safe bet many in the crowd once won a British flag Def Leppard mirror at a carnival and proudly displayed it in their high-school locker.
The best news to report from Thursday’s concert is that guitarist Vivian Campbell looked happy and healthy. He’s been battling Hodgkin’s lymphoma for more than two years, and has come in and out of remission twice. Fellow guitarist Phil Collen continues to impress as well, with the 57-year-old spending the show shirtless, showing off the oiled torso of a college athlete. The pair spent much of the show on opposite sides of the stage, but played together with effortless ease.
Then there’s Joe Elliott. Like many other aging metal singers, Elliott has struggled with his voice for years and Thursday was no different. He’s not as awful as modern-day Vince Neil, nor as bizarre as David Lee Roth, but Elliott remains the weak spot in Def Leppard. At times, the electronic trickery applied to what’s left of his vocals left him sounding almost robotic, particularly during “Love Bites.” (After playing Sioux Falls earlier this month, Elliott posted an apology on Facebook: “I’m sure you noticed, my voice completely went out … but the crowd was just amazing!”)
Tesla, a band mostly followed by older brothers during their heyday, opened the evening with an hour focused on singles drawn from the band’s first three albums. Their 1990 acoustic cover of the hippie-era hit “Signs” stands, by far, as their best-known song, and it predictably earned the warmest response of the show.
With their endless mugging (guitarist James “J.Y.” Young being the worst offender) and sometimes shrill songcraft, a little bit of Styx goes a long way. They work best on these nostalgia bills when they’re not headlining, as was the case Thursday. They played 10 songs, most from their five-year peak of 1977 to 1981. As usual, they skipped several major hits too closely associated with former lead singer Dennis DeYoung (“Babe,” “Mr. Roboto,” “Show Me the Way”) and instead let vocalist/keyboard player Lawrence Gowan indulge in a late-set medley of Elton John’s “Rocket Man,” Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay.”
As far as this stuff goes, Foreigner is a better fit with Def Leppard than Styx, and will take their place when Tesla and Def Leppard return to town Oct. 5 to headline St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center.
Pop music critic Ross Raihala can be reached at 651-228-5553. Follow him at Twitter.com/RossRaihala.
