Ongoing “Hysteria”

“That’s Def Leppard? What happened???”

I’ll tell you what happened. Somewhere between 1984 and 1987, the scrawny lads with bad perms and fake leather trousers morphed into bona fide rock idols. Nowadays it’s hard to recall on demand what I felt about Rick Savage then, but the better part of three decades hasn’t dimmed the spark that jumps when I revisit the video for “Animal”. I’d also bet Ter can say the same about Joe Elliott, who went through a similar maturation phase in the same time. I’m unsure which of us experienced the thud and which of us felt the ripple when the Leppard returned from the grave more sinewy and sensuous than the half-grown cubs they had been in 1983. All I know for sure is that, two days after Joe’s twenty-eighth birthday in 1987, “Hysteria” was released (in more ways than one).

I’m reminiscing because the album turned twenty-nine a couple of weeks ago—alarmingly but not surprisingly, two days after Joe’s fifty-seventh birthday—and the anniversary got me thinking about what the album meant at the time, and what it still means today.

Professionally, it was a game-changer. They had no idea what they were unleashing; this record broke records all over the place, but in our house, it also started a love affair that inspired me to write a legend. Nobody saw that happening, but I’m grateful that it did. That connection makes this band more precious than almost anyone else in my music library—three guesses on the one that trumps them and the first two don’t count!

Hormones and creativity aside, “Hysteria” is still a kick-butt and glossy rock album. It spawned something like half a dozen singles and sent the lads on a two year world tour, throwing them into the spin cycle that regrettably cost one of them his life … though I suspect he was doomed anyway. This album is a testament to Steve Clark’s rock n’ roll prowess. He lived to play guitar, and the guitar on “Hysteria” is unlike the guitar on any other record by any other band. It’s a stand alone, a work that has kept him so vividly alive within the group’s legend that the fellow who took his place twentysome years ago is still considered “the new guy”.

It is not, however, my favourite Leppard album. That said, when the band played it live in its entirety for its twenty-fifth anniversary, they brought down the house. Ter and I watched the DVD in honour of the King’s birthday on August 1. It coincided with the Victoria’s annual “Symphony Splash”, and just as the Leppard concert ended in our living room, so did the orchestra’s in the harbour, and the fireworks exploded to finish both in appropriately grand style.

The band has been through a lot since that album was released. So have Ter and I. Our paths have crossed on occasion. Gone are the days when we’d leave the island to see them, but when they come to us, we’re there. I continually lament that the set list remains stuck in the 80s, and Joe continually insists that’s what the fans want to hear. When I read in the “Viva Hysteria” liner notes that they’d wondered how to play the same songs for ten nights in a row without losing their minds, I almost lost mine. Guys, I thought, you play the first side of “Hysteria” in every single frikkin’ gig you play!

But that’s nitpicking. Sort of. What matters is the legacy to Steve; the bar that was set for every rock album that followed; and the passion that burst in the hearts of two Canadian girls on that day in 1987, when Much Music premiered the new single and one of us blurted:

“That’s Def Leppard? What happened???”