Vintage rockers Def Leppard have been treading the boards for some 24 years now and nobody would forgive them if they suddenly decided to call it a day and pass the gauntlet on to new blood. Tonight’s support act, The Darkness, would happily take up that offer, but if the old hands have anything to do with it, they’ll soldier on for a good few more years yet.

I’d like to take this opportunity to express my feelings of discontent about the Brixton Academy staff. Having waited in the guest list queue for 25 minutes, watching the standard queue disappear into the building, I finally get to the door to collect my photo pass, only to be told it isn’t there.

As I make a phone call to find out if it’s definitely been left for me, several others are turned away, all of whom are adamant that their actual tickets are awaiting them. The doorman’s answer to these dejected people is “we’ve got literally 300 tickets to look through here and they’re all over the place”. When I’m turned away for a second time I ask him why it’s so difficult to find people's tickets/passes, surely they’re in alphabetical order of people’s surname. Apparently “it’s not as simple as that mate”. Well clearly, sir, you are!

Before I can argue any longer I hear The Darkness take to the stage, so give up on my photo pass and make my way into the venue. This is the third time I’ve seen this band perform live and it’s no secret that I think they are fantastic. The hardcore Def Leppard fans warm to the music and the flamboyant stage antics of frontman Justin Hawkins, whose choice of attire tonight is pink leather trousers and a pale pink T-shirt.

By the third song, ‘The Best Of Me’, the audience have taken to clapping in time to the music and the warm applause that follows is taken with appreciative, though somewhat surprised smirks from the band. New single ‘Get Your Hands Off My Woman’ goes down a storm and Justin leaves the stage momentarily, only to return in a leopard-skin catsuit. The guy is a genius, and one of the best frontmen I have ever seen. How many other people can you name who could fit ‘guitar playing behind head’, ‘flexing and kissing of one’s biceps’ and countless scissor kicks in the space of a half-hour set?

Debut single ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’ draws the set towards the end, before an extended version of b-side ‘Love On The Rocks (With No Ice)’ brings the house down, with Justin riding through the crowd aloft one of the crew’s shoulders. So, with the newcomers flying high, just how do the experienced chaps better that?

Well, for a start they burst on to the stage with plenty of energy and enthusiasm and the response from the crowd shows that they are clearly up for it. Def Leppard always were the Iron Maiden that your mum quite liked, thanks to a whole arsenal of ballady rock numbers. The acoustic ‘Two Steps Behind’ and new tracks ‘You’re So Beautiful’ and ‘Long, Long Way To Go’ are all greeted with large amounts of swaying and smiling faces and as I look around the crowd I’m surprised to see that, at 26, I’m by no means the youngest person here.

An hour into the set and I find myself enjoying it a lot more than I expected. Recent single ‘Now’ rocks - big time, while ‘Hysteria’ and the tongue-in-cheek ‘Make Love Like A Man’ remind me how of when I used to listen to the band constantly during my college years.

The best part of the set, by far, comes in the final third, which is dedicated to the old classics. ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’, ‘Animal’, ‘Armageddon It’, ‘Rock Of Ages’ and a blistering 10 minute version of ‘Rocket’ bring the show to an incredible climax and there’s still just enough time for their biggest hit ‘When Love And Hate Collide’ before they say their farewells and disappear backstage.

So, the verdict is that, whist they might have added a few inches to the old waistlines and the odd wrinkle to their faces, Def Leppard still know how to rock and set a fine example to the youngsters. As for The Darkness, they surely have all of that to come and hopefully at least 24 years of it too.
(5/5)

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