Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame inductees Def Leppard present a visual feast for fans on their limited edition Blu-ray Disc/DVD/CD set London To Vegas. The Leppards give us two concert films here, Hysteria At The O2 and Hits Vegas, Live At Planet Hollywood, plus a whole bunch of other goodies, sure to bring about a good helping of hysteria.
Filmed in December 2018, Hysteria At The O2 features the band delivering the Hysteria album in its entirety. Selling out the massive O2 in London is no small feat, but Leppard did and had the crowd in the palm of their hand from the start. The smaller triangle-shaped stage screen (recreating the Hysteria’s front cover) hanging in the center of a larger screen stretching across the massive stage provides everyone in the arena a close-up view. For an album recorded over 30 years ago, the playing is spectacularly recreated.
Six months later, and just after their induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the band slipped into the Zappos Theatre at Planet Hollywood on the infamous Las Vegas’ Strip’ for a residency. In the Hits Vegas, Live At Planet Hollywood video from one of those shows, the band manages a near 30-song dive into many of their hits as well as some rarities. Again, we get the big video walls here, and also two stages. At about the halfway mark, the band walks down to the smaller stage dead center — about halfway into the audience — and sits down for a very cool acoustic set that is pretty much the highlight of the show. The band plays a version of the rarely performed “Let Me Be The One,” from their X album, the newer “We Belong” (one of the best songs of the night), and “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad.”
Things kick back into gear with the band rolling through hits like “Love Bites,” and “Pour Some Sugar On Me,” which excites the Vegas crowd. In addition to the video and CDs from both concerts, Hits Vegas includes a behind-the-scenes bonus feature, while Hysteria At The O2 features the Hysteria: Then And Now mini-documentary. Having earned their place in rock and roll hit-making history, Def Leppard prove they are still able to rock a crowd, hard and long, no matter the size of the arena.
~ Ralph Greco, Jr.
