Singer Joe Elliott’s top sparkles, guitarist Phil Collen’s pecs glisten and one-armed drum hero Rick Allen’s headphones gleam, but there isn’t much behind the glitz in Def Leppard’s 2013 concert movie.
The occasion marks 25 years of the Sheffield rockers’ 1987 album ‘Hysteria’, a blockbuster from MTV’s heyday, here paraded in full before a Vegas crowd.
Guilty pleasures (‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’) and pristine pop (‘Hysteria’) aside, it’s an unforgiving view: Elliott’s sagging charisma and wincing lech-anthems like ‘Women’ (“Legs! Thighs!”) ram home that hair metal hasn’t aged well.
