Def Leppard share the stage with Whitesnake

6:10pm Thursday 13th March 2008

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Birmingham NEC 1987 - and oh what a night of rock.

It was Def Leppard in fabulous form.

A great gig and wonderful to see Rick Allen back on the drum stool, after losing his left arm in a car crash, near Sheffield, on New Year's Eve 1984.

It's hard to imagine how Rick must have felt in the subsequent months after the accident, but his determination to carry on behind his kit was quite staggering.

The other members of the band fully stood behind Rick's determination and never sought a replacement.

During his recovery Rick apparently practiced drumming with pillows, and realised that he could use his legs to do some of the drumming work previously done with his arms. He then worked with Simmons to design an electronic drum kit.

Rick's triumphant comeback was sealed at Donington in 1986.

It must have been incredibly emotional.

If I remember rightly Hysteria, the band's fourth album had just come out, and was selling like hot cakes.

Hysteria spawned seven scorching hit singles such as Animal and Pour Some Sugar On Me.

It remained in the charts for three years and has sold 18 million copies across the globe.

Pyromania, their third album, which was released in 1983, sold six million copies and at the time was held off the top of the US album charts only by Michael Jackson's Thriller.

The boys were seriously big in the States!

Following Hysteria's mammoth success, the band quickly set out to work on their fifth album.

However, guitarist Steve Clark, after a leave of absence from the band and several stints in rehab, died in 1991 in his London home. The remaining band members decided to carry on and record as a four-piece.

Def Leppard's fifth album Adrenalize was released in 1992.

The album simultaneously entered at number one on both the UK and US album charts, staying there for five weeks on the latter.

The month after (April) 1992, guitarist Vivian Campbell (formerly of Dio and Whitesnake) joined Def Leppard.

The album produced six hit singles and sold seven million copies worldwide.

Altogether, since their debut album in 1980, DL have sold 65 million albums and are one of only five bands who can claim to have had two separate, original ten million albums in the US.

The others are The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Van Halen.

So, with a new album out on April 29, Songs From The Sparkle Lounge, the boys will be touring and will play the Manchester Evening News Arena on June 20; Sheffield Arena (June 23); Newcastle Arena (June 24) and Wembley, June 26 They'll also play Glasgow SECC on June 17 and Birmingham NEC on June 18.

As well as other dates in July, they'll play a gig as part of Liverpool European Capital of Culture 08 at the city's ECHO Arena on July 15.

Def Leppard will co-headline the tour with David Coverdale's Whitesnake.

Now, there's a band I've never seen.

Well, apart from once during the 1980s when I saw them all pile out of a car (I think it was a Ford Granada) at a motorway services on the M6.

My personal Whitesnake fav is the 1987 album, which included one of my top ten of all time favourite tracks Still of the Night.

It also featured the power ballad Is It Love and Here I Go Again, which both charted as singles, big time in the US.

David is celebrating the band's 30th anniversary with a tour and the band's first studio release in ten years - Good To Be Bad, out in April.

The June dates include Black Stone Cherry as special guests; the July gigs feature Thunder.

What a terrific line-up!