Def Leppard first gave us their version of “Circle In The Square” 35 years ago this month.
Sadly, Def Leppard dropped off my radar in the months following “Pyromania”. I’ll readily admit I thought they were finished for good after Rick Allen’s accident. But thanks to a a bootleg cassette copy of the Nassau Coliseum show in October 1987 with Tesla opening that a friend kindly dubbed for me, I rediscovered the Leps.
From the Dirty Harry “Do you feel lucky, punk?!” intro to Joe’s thunderous roar (”I SAID WELCOME TO MY SHOW!) into the opening chords of “Stagefright” all the way to their encore of “Photograph” and Little Richard’s “Good Golly Miss Molly”, I was hooked all over again.
I’m sure I still have “In The Round, In Your Face” on well-worn VHS somewhere deep in the bowels of my basement.