Def Leppard, 'Tonight'

How in the world did I miss the Def Leppard video for “Tonight?” The song is, of course, a single from Adrenalize. I have the album and listen to it at least once a month. I listened to it from start to finish on Friday, actually. Anyway, I guess I never knew there was an official video for “Tonight.”

But there is, in fact, an official video for “Tonight!” Now, it's not the best video ever – or even the best Def Lep video – but I'm still pretty excited I found it. I suppose we all know why the video for “Tonight” got lost in the MTV shuffle: grunge. Adrenalize came out in 1992 and by the time “Tonight” was a single...well...you know. That didn't necessarily stop Def Lep from enjoying great success: Adrenalize charted at number one in both America and the UK and went several times platinum.

Surely I'm not the only one just now discovering this video?

Comments

[Brian L]

I have never seen this vid either. amazing. Whats with that cow??
Love Def Lep.

[Dustin in Chillicothe]

I remember seeing the Lepps in concert in the spring of 1993 and "Tonight" was their current single at the time. They performed an acoustic version of this song at the ccncert, which was on their "in the round" Adrenalize stage at the Nutter Center in Dayton, Ohio. Rick Savage led the tune by playing the acoustic intro and the rhythm acoustic guitar throughout. There was a sea of blue lasers going across the room during the song. Grunge had taken over the music scene at the time but Def Leppard still wanted to party like it was 1988! I saw them four times on that tour. There was no opening act for the Dayton show. DL played for 2 1/2 hours! A friend and I snuck into the arena early that day to try to meet the band. We watched the tour crew put the Adrenalize stage together while we hid in some seats near the top level of the arena. The stage was in two half circular parts and were rolled together to form the circular "Adrenalize" eye as seen on the album cover. I finally got brave and walked down the steps toward the floor to see if I could spot a Lepp member but security stopped me and kindly asked us to leave, which we did. My friend and I had front row seats next to the stage so we didn't want to get arrested before the show! Tickets for that concert were only $22!!!! Yep, those were the good ol' days! That concert was amazing and I've yet to see any tour from any band (including the Lepps) top that stage production and performance.

To Brian L.: Please send my your Kix photos of what the band is selling on their 2011 Tour. My e-mail is halloween7@adelphia.net. Thanks!!

[Metalboy!]

Classy vid! Remember it well as Headbanger's Ball was still goin' at this point.

And Bri -- I noticed the same thing you did with a WTF about the cow. But that's what makes it cool. If you'll notice a little bit further on, there's a "naked", distraught muscle bound weight lifter in a clearing a few scenes later. Maybe that's his cow we just saw and now he can't find her.

Dustin! A fantastic story! It reminds me of when me and some buddies snuck into Capital Centre in Largo, MD (right outside of D.C.) to see Van Halen open for Ted Nugent.

I knew if we wore orange T Shirts to look like crew or janitors and acted like we knew what we were doing, we could waltz right in through the huge garage doors where all the tractor trailers rolled in.

We walked right through 2 sets of security (ah, the good old days) and then hung out in the rafters waiting for the right moment to strike. Back then security was just as wasted as the crowd. As soon as the lights went down we rushed the stage.

We were 17 year old orangatangs so we hopped a couple of railings and zipped right up front to the fifth row. Amazingly, no one came later to claim our seats.

We came to see Van Halen as their first album had just come out and their remake of The Kinks' "You Really Got Me" had taken over the airwaves.

Ted had already gone loin cloth and was sans Derek St, Holmes, so we knew the stage had been set for Van Halen to blow him off of it. Needless to say, that's precisely what happened as Terrible Ted (in this case, truly terrible) was left swingin' in the breeze on his rope swing a la Tarzan while Van Halen were probably stealin' all his women backstage.

However, Dustin, unlike you, I have never been fortunate enough to see Def Leppard which immediately puts me right into self-exile in the "What Was I Thinkin'" department.

I will, at last, see them this Summer, hopefully, if I can scrape the bucks together.

Rock On!

[Brian L]

Hey guys. I will email you the shirt picture Dustin and Metalboy, you're right about the cow, for it is a lost cow. I wonder if they butchered it and had a big Def Lep Feast.

I saw Def Lep back during their Hysteria Tour. Telsa opened for them in the Igloo up in Pittsburgh. The stage was set up in the middle and it rotated. I remember beams of lights too...very vididly. Telsa was on their first tour supporting their first album and I'll never forget how they rocked. Of course Lepps brought the house down. I have not seen them since, and that is a long long time ago.
Them with Heart, this summer, does not do it for me and plus I heard that Joe E's voice is not the same...of course neither is Vince's or Don Dokken's...but I still love the music.

[Brian L]

Rock Sugar: Has anyone found this group's music on iTunes?? Or know where I can buy their CD

[Metalboy!]

Bri! There's a copy of Rock Sugar on Ebay. Still got three days to go. You'll pay the piper as this is a collectors item, but it's well worth it, trust me!

If you get it for less than a hundred bux, you'll have gotten a deal.

Supposedly it got pulled off the market because of some copyright issues. They say it's going to be available soon, but I wouldn't count on it. It may eventually, but in the meantime, go for it! It rarely comes up on Ebay, etc. these days, so grab it while you can.

It's worth every penny!

p.s. If I could get the bread together, I'd hire these guys to play my birthday. I've heard from people who have seen 'em, that they are killers and the singer can nail it all from Journey to Priest to Zep to Def Leppard (speak of the devil). To give you an idea how killer they are, they command 10 G's per gig plus travel and hotel accomodations. I also heard they were playin' one of the festivals this Summer but you'll have to check their site or sumthin' to confirm.

[Brian L]

my buddy saw them last yr at the Medolic fest in chicago, i think...he said they were good ,but thought that they were lip syncing??? or that it appeared to be a gimmick or something. my buddy is a big student of our genre, especially, melodic rock...so take it for what it is worth. I love it and so do my children. :)

BTW....that same buddy saw Wildstreet up in Pitt this weekend..14 people were there. how sad...plus the drummer's bass drum kept sliding around and the drummer was pissed the whole show.
That band is really really good. saw them live many times...they finally have gotten their music out there on a video game trailer..but they need an aggressive marketing plan. 13 people..come on.

[Metalboy!]

Hopefully, it's a glitch. Just an off show. But I feel like Glam Metal is a hard row these days despite all of the positive momentum out there over the last few years.

I saw the Cure in 1979 with only 12 people in the audience and then look what happened to them. We can only hope such a great band as Wildstreet can hang on and more and more kids can discover their music as they progress.

A positive sign: I gave my buddy a copy of Rock Sugar's album, "Reimaginator" just last week and he told me his 19-year-old daughter and her friends stole it to take on their trip to Daytona for Spring Break.

Now, granted, that album is basically an old school mashup, as opposed to Wildstreet's music, but her callous act of unabashed thievery duz show a real love of our kinda music coming from this latest generation.

Like you say, tho, Bri, it requires some Marketing. Look what happened to The Darkness when Atlantic put their promotional machine into effect. No doubt, they had a charismatic frontman in Justin Hawkins to leverage. But they took off because the music was great and Atlantic put their promotional muscle behind it.

That's what Wildstreet and other bands like 'em need. Just don't BLOW yourself up like Hawkins. The fact that he did just that and subsequently turned in a subpar, sophomoric second album which immediately tanked is hard evidence of his all too public crash and burn. And such a grandiose spectacle combined with the flop of the resulting follow up album, made him an instant pariah and kryptonite as far as Atlantic was concerned.

Record Companies just don't have much stomach for that sort of thing anymore. And the whole grand experiment was a massive failure and set our cause to Bring Back Glam a full half decade behind, at the very least.

I mean, just imagine if Darkness had built on the momentum of their first album and actually managed to turn in an even better one as the follow up!

They quite possibly would have caught on way beyond any Glam Metal fans wildest dreams, as they once captured the imagination of so many listeners, awakening the inner REAL ROCKER inside so many of us.

Darkness would have been huge and the momentum would have snowballed and catapulted The New Glam Movement way forward, propelling the likes of Wildstreet and more right along with them!

Alas, it didn't happen...

So, Wildstreet, if and when you manage to really catch on, keep on catchin' on! You got what it takes! Me, I'll be at the pre-party for M3 rootin' for ya! I'm already convinced you'll be way more kicka*s than half of the bands who'll be playin' over the following days after your performance.