Def Leppard Tickets

Short Biography
DEF LEPPARD ROCK AUSTRALIA THIS OCTOBER
JOINED BY SPECIAL GUESTS HEART
AND AUSTRALIAN ROCK BAND CHOIRBOYS
                                                                                     
McManus Entertainment is thrilled to announce Def Leppard's return to Australia in October. They will be joined by American rock band Heart, who will be touring Australia for the very first time.
With more than 65 million albums sold worldwide, Def Leppard - Joe Elliott (vocals), Phil Collen (guitar), Rick "Sav" Savage (bass), Vivian Campbell (guitar) and Rick Allen (drums) - continue to be one of the most important forces in rock music.
Over the course of their care...

Short Biography
DEF LEPPARD ROCK AUSTRALIA THIS OCTOBER
JOINED BY SPECIAL GUESTS HEART
AND AUSTRALIAN ROCK BAND CHOIRBOYS
                                                                                     
McManus Entertainment is thrilled to announce Def Leppard's return to Australia in October. They will be joined by American rock band Heart, who will be touring Australia for the very first time.
With more than 65 million albums sold worldwide, Def Leppard - Joe Elliott (vocals), Phil Collen (guitar), Rick "Sav" Savage (bass), Vivian Campbell (guitar) and Rick Allen (drums) - continue to be one of the most important forces in rock music.
Over the course of their career, the band has produced a series of classic groundbreaking albums (including Pyromania and Hysteria) that set the bar for generations of music fans and artists alike. The group's spectacular live shows, filled with powerful rock anthems, continue to sell out venues worldwide. Their epic live show and huge arsenal of hits have become synonymous with their name, leading Def Leppard to be heralded as an institution in both the music and touring industry. The bands live shows clearly demonstrate why Def Leppard remain one of the most highly praised live rock bands of all time!
Def Leppard are one of the few rock bands to join the exclusive "diamond" club, receiving two diamond accreditations (for sales in excess of ten million units) for Pyromania and Hysteria. Pyromania (1983) was recently named by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the "500 Greatest Albums" of all time. The UK's Kerrang! Magazine chose Def Leppard's show as one of their "greatest gigs of all time!"
With hits such as Pour Some Sugar On Me, Photograph, Let's Get Rocked, Animal, Rock of Ages, When Love & Hate Collide and Love Bites, Def Leppard have become a staple on rock radio and music television worldwide.
Def Leppard's new live album (2CD and DVD) Mirror Ball Live & More is available now through Riot! Entertainment.
Heart will be joining Def Leppard on their first ever tour of Australia. Their debut album Dreamboat Annie sailed into the Australian Top 10 in 1976. Heart showed the world that women can rock! Not only did the Wilson sisters (Ann and younger sister Nancy) lead the band, they wrote the songs and played the instruments too, making them the first women in rock to do so. Some of Heart's biggest hits include Magic Man, All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You, These Dreams, Barracuda and they have even recorded a cover of John Farnham's You're The Voice. Throughout their 35 year career, Heart has sold more than 30 million records, had 22 Top 40 hits, sold out arenas worldwide and had a profound influence on rock music. In 2010 they returned to the Top 10 again with the critically acclaimed album Red Velvet Car.
"We are enormously excited to be bringing our show down under," says lead singer Ann Wilson. "This is the fulfillment of a long-time dream."
Joining them will be legendary Australian rock band Choirboys. With a career spanning 30 years, Choirboys will transport the audience back in time with hits including Run To Paradise, Boys Will Be Boys, Struggle Town and Never Gonna Die.
Def Leppard, Heart and Choirboys is a line up not to be missed!
Proudly presented by MAX, Triple M, Australian Guitar Magazine, KOFM, Mix 106.3 and Mix 94.5
Tickets go on sale from 9am on Monday 18 July

In-depth Biography
In many ways, Def Leppard were the definitive hard rock band of the '80s. There were many bands that rocked harder (and were more dangerous) than the Sheffield-based quintet, but few others captured the spirit of the times quite as well. Emerging in the late '70s as part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Def Leppard actually owed more to the glam rock and metal of the early '70s, as their sound was equal parts T. Rex, Mott the Hoople, Queen, and Led Zeppelin. By toning down their heavy riffs and emphasizing melody, Def Leppard were poised for crossover success by 1983's Pyromania, and skillfully used the fledgling MTV network to their advantage. The musicians were already blessed with photogenic good looks, but they also crafted a series of innovative, exciting videos that made them into stars. They intended to follow Pyromania quickly but were derailed when their drummer lost an arm in a car accident, the first of many problems that plagued the group's career. They managed to pull through such tragedies, and even expanded their large audience with 1987's blockbuster Hysteria. As the '90s began, mainstream hard rock shifted away from their signature pop-metal and toward edgier, louder bands, yet they maintained a sizable audience into the late '90s and were one of only a handful of '80s metal groups to survive the decade more or less intact.

Def Leppard had their origins in a Sheffield-based group that teenagers Rick Savage (bass) and Pete Willis (guitar) formed in 1977. Vocalist Joe Elliott, a fanatic follower of Mott the Hoople and T. Rex, joined the band several months later, bringing the name Deaf Leopard with him. After a spelling change, the trio, augmented by a now-forgotten drummer, began playing local Sheffield pubs, and within a year the band had added guitarist Steve Clark to the lineup, as well as a new drummer. Later in 1978, they recorded their debut EP, Getcha Rocks Off, and released it on their own label, Bludgeon Riffola. The EP became a word-of-mouth success, earning airplay on the BBC. The group members were still in their teens.

Following the release of Getcha Rocks Off, Rick Allen was added as the band's permanent drummer, and Def Leppard quickly became the subject of the British music weeklies. They soon signed with AC/DC's manager, Peter Mensch, who helped them secure a contract with Mercury Records. On Through the Night, the band's full-length debut, was released in 1980 and instantly became a hit in the U.K., also earning significant airplay in the U.S., where it reached number 51 on the charts. Over the course of the year, Def Leppard relentlessly toured Britain and America, playing their own shows while also opening concerts for Ozzy Osbourne, Sammy Hagar, and Judas Priest. High 'n' Dry followed in 1981 and became the group's first platinum album in the U.S., thanks to MTV's strong rotation of "Bringin' on the Heartbreak." MTV would be vital to the band's success in the '80s.

As the band recorded the follow-up to High 'n' Dry with producer Mutt Lange, Pete Willis was fired from the band for alcoholism, and Phil Collen, a former guitarist for Girl, was hired to replace him. The resulting album, 1983's Pyromania, became an unexpected blockbuster, due not only to Def Leppard's skillful, melodic metal, but also to MTV's relentless airing of "Photograph" and "Rock of Ages." Pyromania went on to sell ten million copies, establishing Def Leppard as one of the most popular bands in the world. Despite their success, they were about to enter a trying time for their career. Following an extensive international tour, the group reentered the studio to record the follow-up, but producer Lange was unavailable, so they began sessions with Jim Steinman, the man responsible for Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell. The pairing turned out to be ill-advised, so the bandmembers turned to their former engineer, Nigel Green. One month into recording, Allen lost his left arm in a New Year's Eve car accident. The arm was reattached, but it had to be amputated once an infection set in.

Def Leppard's future looked cloudy without a drummer, but by the spring of 1985 -- just a few months after his accident -- Allen began learning to play a custom-made electronic kit assembled for him by Simmons. The band soon resumed recording, and within a few months Lange was back on board, having judged all the existing tapes inferior and ordered the band to begin work all over again. Recording sessions continued throughout 1986, and that summer, the group returned to the stage for the European Monsters of Rock tour. Def Leppard finally completed their fourth album, now titled Hysteria, early in 1987. The record was released that spring to lukewarm reviews, with many critics claiming that the album compromised Leppard's metal roots for sweet pop flourishes. Accordingly, Hysteria was slow out of the starting gates -- "Women," the first single, failed to really take hold -- but the release of "Animal" helped the album gather steam. The song became Def Leppard's first Top 40 hit in the U.K., but more importantly, it launched a string of six straight Top 20 hits in the U.S., which also included "Hysteria," "Pour Some Sugar on Me," "Love Bites," "Armageddon It," and "Rocket," the latter of which arrived in 1989, a full two years after the release of Hysteria. During those two years, Def Leppard's presence was unavoidable -- they were the kings of high-school metal, ruling the pop charts and MTV, and teenagers and bands alike replicated their teased hair and ripped jeans, even when the grimy hard rock of Guns N' Roses took hold in 1988.

Hysteria proved to be the peak of Leppard's popularity, yet their follow-up remained eagerly awaited in the early '90s, as the band took a break from the road and set to work on a new record. During the recording process, however, Steve Clark died from an overdose of alcohol and drugs. Clark had historically battled with alcohol, and following the Hysteria heyday, his bandmates forced him to take a sabbatical. Although he did enter rehab, Clark's habits continued, and his abuse was so crippling that Collen began recording the majority of the band's guitar leads. Following Clark's death, Def Leppard resolved to finish their forthcoming album as a quartet, releasing Adrenalize in the spring of 1992. Adrenalize was greeted with mixed reviews, and even though the album debuted at number one and contained several successful singles, including the Top 20 hits "Let's Get Rocked" and "Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad," the record was a commercial disappointment in the wake of Pyromania and Hysteria. After its release, the group added former Whitesnake guitarist Vivian Campbell to the lineup, thus resuming Def Leppard's two-guitar attack.

In 1993, Def Leppard released the rarities collection Retro Active, which yielded another Top 20 hit with the acoustic ballad "Two Steps Behind." Two years later, the group released the greatest-hits collection Vault while preparing for its sixth album. Slang arrived in the spring of 1996, and while it proved more adventurous than its predecessor, it was greeted with indifference, indicating that Leppard's heyday had indeed passed and they were now simply a very popular cult band. Undaunted, Leppard soldiered on, returning to their patented pop-metal sound for Euphoria, which was released in June of 1999. Despite the success of "Promises," the record failed to produce any additional hits, resulting in a return to adult pop balladry on 2002's X. The two-disc Rock of Ages: The Definitive Collection arrived in 2005, followed in 2006 by Yeah!, a strong collection of covers. In 2008, the guys released their ninth studio album, Songs from the Sparkle Lounge, which debuted at number five and was supported by a lucrative summer tour. Material from that tour helped make up the bulk of Mirror Ball: Live & More, a three-disc live album containing a full concert, three new studio recordings, and DVD footage. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi