DEF LEPPARD TO INCLUDE A RECORDING OF A 1980 CONCERT AS PART OF A “CELEBRATORY RELEASE”

Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott was a recent guest on Eddie’s SiriusXM’s, Trunk Nation show, where he revealed that the band s planning to issue a recording of an 1980 concert as part of a new “celebratory release.” The live album will feature guitarist Pete Willis, who was replaced by Phil Collen in 1982.

He tells Eddie (via blabbermouth.net), “We thought about this about a year and a half ago,” he said. “And there’s gonna be a celebratory release. I don’t know how much of this I can say right now. I might be breaking protocol. But I will say this much: there’s a companion piece to On Through The Night, there’s a brand-new, just-mixed live performance from the Oxford Theatre from 1980, which has never been heard ever.”

According to Elliott, the recording will be a true representation of the show. “It’s warts and all,” he said. “It is what it is. It’s us live in 1980. We were discussing off-mic about lip-syncing or overdubbing … You can’t expect a 59-year-old me to go in and clean up a 20-year-old vocal. You know what I mean? So, it is what it is. But I tell you this much: the band… As I said in the liner notes, when you peer through the curtain of uncertainty that my voice was back in those days, there is a fantastic band onstage. And the two-armed Rick Allen with Sav [bassist Rick Savage] was some rhythm section to come, considering he was 16 years old and Sav was 17, I think — maybe 18. And Pete and Steve[Clark] were 17 and 18 years old. It was some band.”

According to Setlist, Def Leppard’s April 26th, 1980 concert at the New Theatre Oxford (then called the Apollo) featured a 15-song setlist which included all 11 of On Through The Night‘s tracks, plus two songs that appeared on the 1981 follow-up High ‘N’ Dry (Lady Strange and Let It Go), Good Morning Freedom (the B-side to Hello America) and Medicine Man, which eventually morphed into Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop) and appeared on 1983’s Pyromania album.

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