I Was There: Def Leppard

Our poker games are frequently put on pause when someone starts talking about music—everyone sitting there with a handful of cards blabbing on all drunk about the first Dio album or some Day on the Green. Inevitably, someone says “you were at that show?! I was there, too!”

One of these times, I suggested to the publisher of the local music paper sitting next to me that his rag should have a column called I Was There about shows of historical significance that (older) readers might relate to. Brent Cole agreed—and he reminded me of my idea on Monday morning with an assignment of 500-700 words on the historically significant show of my choosing. I’d forgotten the conversation, of course– but suddenly I was a columnist.

This review appeared in the WhatsUp Magazine in 2002. I’ll make it clear in this italicized introduction that there are few bands of any genre that I despise more than Def Leppard. I don’t imagine they are all that much worse than any number of others, but my disdain for them lies in the fact that they were once my favorite band. The importance of High ‘N’ Dry to my musical development cannot be overstated. And the first time I heard the follow-up Pyromania my heart was broken. They’ve only gotten shittier since then.

Still, 1981 was a very good year. I was there…

Halloween 1981 was a big night for me. I’d been to plenty of arena shows in the city, but usually in Greg Dumbshield’s mom’s station wagon. This night, I was drivin’ myself. In my ’71 Impala.   To a “theater” in Belltown, far away from the touristy comfort and landmarks of Seattle Center. Dressed as Angus Young.

I had been listening to High ‘N’ Dry all summer. Every day I listened to it and wondered how a record could be so perfect. From the springy opening riff of “Let it Go” to the last ringing chords of “No No No” Def Leppard’s second record was a masterpiece of lite metal.  Produced by Mutt Lange, it had all of the buzzy bluster of Highway to Hell, but also a sultry sense of dynamic seemingly beyond the chronological ages of its creators, none of them over 20– some allegedly as young as 16. How, I wondered to no one in particular, sitting in my room with headphones on as summer slouched away unnoticed, could any album be better than Highway to Hell?

And now they were coming. Inconcert, as they used to say. Steve Slaton was just starting to get hip, playing “Let it Go” and the title track on his MetalShop radio show, and at the last minute KISW pulled through with a Rising Star endorsement. I scoffed at the panicky marketing. “I was inta these dudes afore anybody,” I bragged to my parents before adding “bring my heel down on the toe and break the bone…”

Halloween was on a fucking Friday. I had such a stiffy as I pinned enameled AC/DC buttons all over the lapels of my navy blue suit coat and put it on over a white dress shirt, striped necktie and cut-off shorts. Horns and a tail finished the outfit, then I revved up the Impala and drove straight to Northgate, missing Belltown by six miles. Goddamnit. Not having yet matured into man, however, it was easy for me to stop and ask directions at the 76 station, and before I knew it I had actually parallel parked the Impala and was standing in line waiting to get into the Moore.

I immediately sensed something different in the crowd. They were dressed the same and used the same vulgar slang & poor grammar as the kids at the arena shows. But they seemed somehow more hip to the subtleties of the music and its implications. The Moore Theater held only 1200 people– these were the 1200 most informed and discriminating rivetheads in the Puget Sound region! These kids were students. They were my people…

The show itself was unbelievable, naturally. I had a third row seat, and jumped gleefully onto the armrests of it as soon as everyone else did, at the dimming of the houselights. The band clearly was experiencing that intoxicating and fleeting rush that floats an act in the midst of their break. They were young, playing the States for the first time to appreciative audiences. Reporters wanted to talk to them. Kids wearing their shirts were hanging around the alleys behind venues. And headlining bands (this night it was Blackfoot) were shunning them. They were on the way up.

There was something very sexual about Def Leppard in this period, before they turned into one of the lame, established bands they once frightened. And that sexuality was derived at least partially from their youth. The shirtless photos on the sleeve of High ‘N’ Dry– pasty white British skin and stringy hair (what’s wrong with being sexy?) bordered on child pornography. They were also all very fucking short. Pete Willis in particular was only about 18″ tall. He was great, though, playing this huge black Hamer Destroyer-style guitar that looked like it must have belonged to his uncle.

And the rest is history. Little Pete Willis wouldn’t see the next U.S. tour, because he drank too much. The other guitarist Steve Clark wouldn’t see the year 2000 because he drank too much. And the drummer Rick Allen couldn’t drink as much as he used to, because he lost one of his arms in a drunk driving accident. And everyone knows two fists are better than one when it comes to drinkin’.

As for myself, I sped the Impala back to the burbs and drank too much at Scott Fisher’s Halloween party with my regular friends. But my heart was back at the Moore with all of my new friends, the ones that I hadn’t actually met yet.  Handfulls of Halloween candy disagreed with kegcups of beer, and I barfed near the 10th hole of the golf course, still wearing my tail, though I’d lost my horns by that time. Trick or treat—Let it Go…

Twisted Sister Y&T & Q5 Seattle Center Coliseum, spring 1985

Once an SMF, always an SMF.

That’s how Dee Snider signed an autograph for me when I finally met him in 1992. It was appropriate--perhaps even necessary--as there was hipper music being made at the time than the kind he had popularized during the previous decade. But in the crisp springtime of 1985, Dee and the rest of Twisted Sister were enjoying being Sick Muther Fuckers for the very first time.

Their commercially-explosive Stay Hungry was still selling on the strength of its cartoonish singles, and the grueling tour in support of the record was stretching well into its second year. Their Saturday afternoon show in Seattle, in fact, was the third time they’d been through town insisting every rivethead in King County purchase a copy.

I had mine. So did everyone else on the staff of Denim & Leather, the Seattle metal fanzine to which I was contributing at the time. Its publisher O.T.T. had turned me on to Twisted Sister a couple of years earlier, and I cruised down to his Northgate apartment on Friday night in my girlfriend’s ’73 Mustang Mach1 so we could get an early start on our buzzes for the show. Why Amanda ever gave me the keys to that thing to speed up and down I-5 drinking and drugging with O.T.T. was beyond me—she didn’t even like heavy metal. But it was handy, as neither O.T.T. nor myself had cars of our own, and we needed a real fast one to squeal around in once we got drunk and stoned enough.

Winding up for the show early Saturday afternoon, I discovered two caps of MDA in the change pocket of my leather jacket. I had no idea where they had come from. The concept of “spare drugs” was not a common one to us in those days. With the exception of weed, which you always purchased in bulk, there was no such thing as extra drugs. You scored what you needed (well, maybe a tiny bit more than you actually needed) for a particular event, then hit them and hit them until they were gone. Coming up the next day to face a doggie bag of what you’d tried to kill yourself with the night before was not appealing.

But a hit of mid-‘80s MDA and a sunny drive to the Twisted Fuckin’Sister show certainly was! We washed the red caps down with Moosehead and saddled up the Mach1. We were due to meet the entire staff of Denim & Leather at the fountain at 4:30 for a group photo that was to appear in the upcoming anniversary issue of the magazine.

(While we’re waiting for the drug to take, let me just make one thing perfectly clear: Twisted Sister was a great band. The unfortunate representation through the aforementioned “hits” and the gross exploitation of the band by way of the faggy music video is not worth arguing against, but none of that shit was what TS was all about. Studio records are studio records; hits are hits. The great rock and roll band excels live,

and Twisted Sister was an amazing live act. Take a listen to the B side of the I Am, I’m Me 12” recorded live at the Marquee in London in 1983. It’s fucking animal. Dig the hopped-up eleven-minute version of “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll” with Dee going out of his damn mind down on the floor. Like Rodney Dangerfield meets the Nuge in make-up, this is one of the most inspired and compelling vocal performances ever recorded. Solid rock…)

So we’re crossing the ship canal bridge, and I think O.T.T. is going out the window on me. Dude used to eat acid like popcorn, but this MDA was workin’ him over. Twisting in the passenger seat of the Mach1, he was a heap of sweats and deep breaths, darting eyes and lots of faces in the vanity mirror, but finally we got parked and smoked a bowl and by the time we reached the fountain, that real bad part of that drug was gone and it was just a lot of whoa & giggle, touching friend’s faces. It was still pretty zoomy—the Denim & Leather staff all snarling and pasty and hollering about Twisted. Eventually we escaped the group to wig on the outer rim of the fountain, soaking in its mist and trying to catch the space needle.

The show, of course, was surreal. Local doods Q5, featuring TKO originals Evan Sheeley and Rick Pierce, were great, and the Belushish Y&T drummer Leonard Haze came out from behind his kit in baseball pants to say comedy jokes. But it was Twisted Sister, all 800’ of them, who made the lasting impression this night. During the climax, amidst a show-ending medley built around “You Can’t Stop Rock ‘n’ Roll” Dee called for the houselights so he “could see all the sick muthahfuckahs.” And there, at the very top of the Coliseum, sat my old friend Skip Galvin, his back to the concrete wall of the arena. From the stage, Dee Snider screamed at Skip to get on his feet—one guy in a crowd of 12,000 caught shirking like the little imp in Horton Hears a Who. And I stood there on the floor, fist in the air, staring up at Skip, suddenly the anti-star of the evening, dilated and wondering just what were the odds?

There are probably better drugs to enjoy Twisted Sister on. And when they come around this summer on their Reunion tour (true) I’ll make use of this hard-earned knowledge.

Once an SMF, always an SMF…