“Are you seeing Extreme for the first time?” Nuno Bettencourt wants to know. A surprising number of people cheer. “Where you been?” He replies. “You’ve had 40 years!”
There are support bands, there are special guests and then there are bands like Extreme, who seem to regard the fact they have only got an hour as some kind of personal challenge. “Decadence Dance” starts the party and, watching Gary Cherone bound around the enormous stage as if it were a club, you realise something: this man was born to do this.
He looks fresher than he has any right to and sounds superb. Alongside him, Bettencourt remains one of those guitarists for whom the normal rules don’t appear to apply.
“#REBEL”, from 2023’s Six, belongs in this company. That matters. Extreme aren’t here simply to remind everyone what they did 35 years ago and collect the money. That said, some songs just endure.
“Rest In Peace” sounds as true now as it did more than 30 years ago and, for me at least, comes with the memory of buying the single back then. Music does that. A song plays and suddenly the intervening decades disappear.
“Play With Me” goes right back to the debut album and still sounds ridiculously fresh. Cherone, by now perched on top of the speakers, appears determined to prove that ageing is something that happens to other people. “Hole Hearted” is still a classic and, afterwards, Bettencourt gets the acoustic guitar out for “Midnight Express”, demonstrating yet again that there is very little he can’t do with six strings.
Then comes “More Than Words”. Most of Birmingham appears to love it, so I’ll leave them to it.
Normal service resumes quickly. “Enough of that sentimental shit,” laughs Bettencourt before “Flight Of The Wounded Bumblebee”, and within seconds he is slaying once again. “Get The Funk Out” remains a copper-bottomed slice of brilliance, the type of song that makes absolutely no concession to changing fashion because it never needed to in the first place.
Then there’s “RISE”. Again, that matters. In what seems like a deliberate bid not to become a heritage act, Extreme finish their own material with one of the finest songs from Six. Nuno’s solo remains utterly ludicrous, but the song around it deserves equal praise.
There is, though, one final moment. Almost exactly a year ago, Bettencourt was one of the musicians playing at Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne’s Back To The Beginning show across Birmingham at Villa Park. The medley of “I Don’t Know”, “Bark At The Moon” and “Crazy Train” that closes this set is heartfelt and beautifully done. It is a fitting end to a wonderful hour.
“Would you please welcome Universal Recording Artist, Def Leppard”
The American voice booms around the arena. The screens flare into life. Def Leppard are here. For all that US styling, they remain as English as a cup of tea and moaning about the weather.
“Rejoice” begins the show, one of the newer songs Joe Elliott had promised would be included tonight. “I only come alive when the sun goes down,” he sings, with stars and images of the universe filling the screens behind them.
And that sound. That enormous, instantly recognisable Def Leppard sound.
Then “Animal” starts.
Boom.
MV has seen this band in all sorts of places over the last couple of decades, but nights at Wolverhampton Civic and the Academy seem light years away now. Def Leppard are riding one hell of a renaissance and this show feels like the culmination of it.
“Are you ready for this?” Well, yes.
“Let’s Get Rocked”. The absolute pinnacle of arena rock.
That’s the thing with Def Leppard. People sometimes get so caught up in the songs, the sales and the sheer scale of what they’ve achieved that their ability can almost be overlooked. Take “Personal Jesus”. The Depeche Mode song is simply turned into an arena rocker, because apparently Def Leppard can do that too.
“Let’s go old,” says Elliott, before “Bringin’ On The Heartbreak” and “Switch 625” give the band the chance to stretch out. Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell trade licks, Rick Allen gets his drum solo and the whole thing underlines just how good this band are.
Elliott returns in a sparkly shirt for “Just Like ’73”, another of the newer ones. It feels like the start of the second act, because that is what this is: a show with an arc. It isn’t merely a collection of songs played in roughly chronological order. It moves, changes and builds.
“Rocket” is an early high point. Literally, given Elliott’s vocals. Best not ask how he is still hitting those notes. Just accept that he is somehow and move on.
Elliott recalls that the first time Def Leppard played here was back in September 1979 on a bill with Sammy Hagar. Much has changed. Rick Savage takes centre stage with a bass solo and then Elliott suddenly appears out in the seats for their version of David Essex’s “Rock On”.
Then comes a genuine surprise. “White Lightning”, dusted off from seemingly nowhere, is a reminder that Def Leppard have always had more depth than their greatest-hits set might suggest.
“Slang” follows and brings Bettencourt back out. Nuno joins the band while Elliott goes for walkies around the arena, seemingly intent on making sure every part of the venue gets involved.
“Promises” makes it something of a mid-period triumvirate, and I don’t care what anyone says, that is an underrated song. And the “alright fellas” bit nicked from Sweet? No objection here, Your Honour.
“Armageddon It” takes me somewhere else again. I can still remember buying the single in the North Staffs Co-op where my gran worked. I still would tomorrow.
That’s the thing about this music. It has been there for most of my life. There are memories attached to these songs that have nothing to do with critical analysis and everything to do with simply being there.
“Love Bites” is the power ballad’s power ballad, before “Rock Of Ages” becomes a celebration of the whole thing. “I love rock ’n’ roll. Long live rock ’n’ roll.” Quite right too.
“Photograph” is an arguable high point of arena rock. On the huge screens, the band appear as they were in 1984 alongside the men they are today. It is a clever visual, but it also asks an unspoken question: how has this endured? How have they endured?
The encore begins with “When Love And Hate Collide”, the acceptable face of power balladry. Judging by the number of middle-aged couples cuddling around the arena, it might also have been responsible for a mini baby boom in the mid 1990s.
Then “Hysteria”. They go old-school on the intro and the lasers and lighting are incredible. By now Elliott has the crowd on a string, not that there was ever much doubt.
“Pour Some Sugar On Me” essentially turns the BP Pulse Live into a strip club for a few minutes, which, frankly, might be the only possible way that song should ever be played.
As the night reaches its end, Elliott reflects that 49 years ago, he and Rick Savage decided to “form a band and see what happened.”
What happened was this. Worldwide sales. Stadiums. Tragedy. Triumph. Songs that have soundtracked millions of lives and, 49 years later, an arena in Birmingham absolutely in the palm of their hands.
It’s tough to think that there is anyone better at this.
Def Leppard, then.
The best arena rock band the UK has ever produced.
