Rock! Rock! [Till You Drop]

Recently I was on the Discogs, buying a cheap 45 from the UK, when I realised that with the price of the international shipping, I'd might as well buy something else at the same time, get my money's worth. I scrolled through the person's vinyl for sale, not much impressed, until I stumbled upon the perfect item, an album I must have.

It was Pyromania, by Def Leppard.

Ever since it arrived yesterday, I can't stop listening to it, remembering the joy I've been brought by the English rockers who were once (or twice, or three times), my favourite band.

From my earliest days, I've always had my radar up, looking for new music. Even when I was a really little kid, if someone around me was listening to music, I wanted to hear it, to know more about it. If someone in my family, be it a parent, grandparent, cousin, whoever, left a record or tape lying around, I picked it up and put it on my stereo, like a musical magpie. I didn't bother to ask permission, or let them know I'd borrowed their album... unless I got caught. I just soaked up the music from wherever I could get it.

Then in 1983, I met my teenaged half siblings for the first time -- it's a long story that's irrelevant here. The upshot is that I had a new brother come to visit that summer, and he was listening to music unlike anything I'd previously snagged from anybody else in the family. I loved it, couldn't get enough of it.

It was Pyromania, by Def Leppard.

As soon as I could, I got my own copy of the tape and nearly wore it out, listening so much. By the time I was in middle school and all but dropped Def Leppard for other bands considered cooler by my fellow tweens, they released Hysteria, which my friends and I went... well... hysterical over. They were my favourite band once again. I watched MTV endlessly waiting for their videos. I put their posters on my wall. And I saw them live.

In the fall of 1988, Def Leppard brought their tour to the local coliseum. I was too young to go see them on my own, but luckily one of my best childhood friends had the Cool Dad of our group. You remember Cool Dad from your childhood -- the only parent in your circle of friends who wore a leather jacket, drove a Turbo Z, had a vague knowledge of the stuff you were interested in... OK, the car and apparel may be different based on your age, but Cool Dad was the same. He never changes.

Photo from Halloween 2011, T-shirt from 1988

Anyway, Cool Dad had called around to the Coliseum a day or two before the show, to see if any production tickets had been released. If you're not familiar with this concept, when a band does a big tour of arenas, the facilities they book sell tickets based on how they think the travelling stage setup will work in their space, erring on the side of fewer seats, to avoid a fan riot. Once the crew arrives and gets the whole shebang configured, they're often able to add extra seats in the gaps near the stage, and sell them last minute to Cool Dads in the know. This was how we got our Def Leppard tickets, and our Cool Dad chaperone, in the 3rd row... of seats that were on the floor, but well back from the stage with equipment in front of us. But it was our first concert, and there were only 2 rows of other fans between us and the stage, so as far as we were concerned, we were practically able to reach out and touch Joe Elliott's mullet. It was awesome. And 32 years later, I still have the concert t-shirt with our tour date on the back.

But despite that experience, I was a kid. I got older, and different things became cool. By the next year I was into post-modern music, preferring Sinéad O'Connor live over the previous year's hair bands (yeah, Cool Dad took us to Bon Jovi too). I didn't really think about Def Leppard much for the rest of middle school, until I got a call in 1991 from the same friend I'd been to the gig with. She and I were the kind of pals who'd spent countless hours on the phone over the years, talking, not talking, watching TV together, but I only remember one of those conversations now. And I remember it vividly. I picked up, and she said, "Steve Clark died." The news had just come out, so I remember us talking about how we didn't really know any of the facts beyond that. I remember, shock, sadness, and fear that this great band might break up with the loss of their guitarist.

Of course, they didn't break up; they found Vivian Campbell, and kept on keeping on. As did I, through alt rock, local bands, Brit pop, R&B, and more, until I became close with a new friend late in high school who, unlike me, had never stopped loving Def Leppard. Because of him, I found their new music, and tacked on another couple years of fandom in the mid-90s.

But that didn't last either. College brought all manner of new music to my life, and the rock of my youth never quite dominated my album collection the way it had in the past.

The last run-in I had with my Def Leppard fanaticism was a few years ago, at Heathrow airport. I was travelling around the holiday season, when the place was a madhouse. As I rushed out of the overcrowded lounge to catch my plane, I narrowly missed bumping into a very familiar looking man with his family. I bustled on, and within seconds realised it was Rick Allen, Def Leppard's drummer... the drummer who's been with them since 1977, even after he lost an arm and had to get a special drum kit made and learn new techniques to keep on rockin' -- he's incredible to watch live, by the way. Anyway, at that moment I went right back to being a starstruck kid, like when I first heard Pyromania, unable to believe I'd been so lucky as to see one of my heroes.

I've seen various celebrities in air travel over the years, but only Rick Allen has ever given me that feeling.

While I know the guys are still out there doing their thing - making music, playing gigs, my relationship with them remains in the 80s and 90s. I still listen to the old albums occasionally, and back when I did karaoke I'd sing Def Leppard songs on the regular. Maybe it's all just nostalgia, but the music is still great. The music will always be great.

And hey, maybe now with this record purchase, I will get Def Leppard back in heavy rotation. I really have been enjoying it the last couple days. I should see what they've been up to in the last couple decades. Hey, Google...

Holidaze

Normally I'd never use punny wordplay in a blog title, but this one was inspired by a holiday themed song by Bootsy Collins, so I'll allow it. Just this once.

By all accounts I was well ahead of the game this holiday season. I started listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving (but only Robbie Williams' new record The Christmas Present, because it came out in November), had my tree up and all gifts wrapped up under it by mid-December. So why am I only writing about the holidays now, in February?

The cool answer would be that my holiday season goes through the end of January, so it can include my birthday. But as we all know, I'm not cool. In reality, there were a series of times that I meant to write over the last couple of months, and then I just didn't.

First, I went to London for a few days, in mid-December. When Rob's aforementioned Christmas album was released, he also announced a one-off show in London to support it: The Robbie Williams Christmas Party. So I dutifully woke up at 2am (for the 10am GMT opening of the ticket presale window), and got my ticket... but only after fighting with Ticketmaster online for a good 30-40 minutes. Evidently the site's issues were because of overwhelming demand, so when tickets sold out in a few minutes, RW and team added a second show the following night. Despite my flight & hotel booking keeping me in London for both days, I decided one show was enough.

Until I landed at Heathrow and got excited for the show. And decided to just look online to see if any tickets were still available for the second show, out of curiosity. There were some, including better seats than I had for the original gig, for a lower price... so the decision was made: I'd go to both nights!

Of course I was glad that I did. I never regret joining the Robbie Williams live experience, even for essentially the same show multiple times. Sadly, not all of the audience members were as stoked as I was. Normally the whole crowd stands for the 90-120 minutes the Man is onstage. Not this time. Both nights, while I spent the whole time out of my seat, singing and dancing along to every song, almost everyone around me sat, annoyed that they couldn't see through me. They would get up and show some enthusiasm for the hits and the covers of Christmas classics, but spent the other half of the set slumped bored in their chairs, scrolling through their phones.

Look, I know the majority of folk at Rob's shows aren't going to be maniacs like me -- he needs the casual fans who only know 6 songs to show up, since the small number of us devotees aren't going to pay his mortgage. I don't begrudge their presence, and normally I'll never complain about the set lists catering to their limited interests.

But come on... this was a show called The Robbie Williams Christmas Party, where it was very specifically stated as promoting the new Christmas album, and most of the tickets were only available to people with codes they got by purchasing said new Christmas album. Don't be irritated when the majority of the show is new songs, from the new Christmas album. I mean, what did you think you were buying a ticket for?!?!

Ahem. What was I saying? Oh. So the show was great, as always. Nothing like it. I had a fantastic time, regardless of the disinterested masses. And so did the other Friendlies, and Rob, per what he told us the next day. That's what matters.

Anyway, I didn't write about all this while I was in London because I wanted to wait until after the second show to do it, and I was off to the airport with the beginning of a cold less than 12 hours later. When I got home, I was fully taken over by the miserable Tube virus (yeah, I blame my getting sick on having to touch things in the London Underground full of sniffly, coughing people and forgetting to coat myself with hand sanitizer immediately afterward). And it left me doing nothing but lying around feeling sorry for myself the next few days.

The cold was improved but still hanging around at Christmas, when my mom came to visit and I went into hostess mode. With the loss of both my dad and grandma this September, two big figures in the Christmas traditions were gone and I was more than happy to do something very different. We tried to plan the holiday at my brother's farm, but it turns out travelling to remote parts of Alaska in the middle of winter is easier said than done. There were other travel challenges, and in the end we stayed at my place and had a very quiet time. It was nice.

By Hogmanay I'd been hit with a bit of the winter greys and couldn't be bothered to write. Not the blues, nowhere near depression -- nothing of concern -- just the general state of blah laziness that strikes all of us living in a place where the darkness and grey skies roll in mid-November and don't roll out again until April. I pretty much spent January there, and did nothing but work too late on my birthday, so nothing much to report.

But now blue skies are smilin' at me, so here I am. I'll try not to type your ear off.