Venue: Hammersmith Apollo, London, UK
Concert date: 17.06.2006
Attendance: 5039
Ticket price: 11,500 SIT (32.50 GBP)
The wait is finally over, well, my wait anyway, to see Leppard at London’s Hammersmith. The old theater with the famous name can hold just over 5000 people, and at Sunday’s show you could really tell.
It was only 5:30 PM and already a line of fans some 300 meters long had formed on the sweltering street outside the hall, and every one of us was impatiently waiting for the doors to open at 7:00 PM. The entry itself went very smoothly and surprisingly fast (plenty of Slovenian promoters could take a lesson from the islanders on that).
Finally inside, out of the heat, and in line again for some liquid refreshment, and the next moment we were in a packed hall with a great view of the stage from every corner. The roaring crowd waited impatiently for things to kick off while we all stared in near-total darkness at the big screen above the stage showing the Yeah! album artwork.
At exactly 7:30 PM the slightly older Irish accent of the lead singer of the support act The Sensational Alex Harvey Band rang out. They played for just under half an hour, and for my taste there was exactly one good song, but they were clearly meant for a slightly older crowd, so fair enough. A few more minutes of break while the roadies got the stage ready for Cheap Trick, a band that already toured with Leppard last year in North America. A little after 8:00 the guitars of another bunch of old tomcats rang out, who were likewise presenting their new studio record, especially with their “custom made” guitars, of which they showed off quite a few. One hour of their biggest hits plus a few tracks from the new album. To be honest, you could see that those who had come only for Leppard were already glaring a bit and waiting for Cheap Trick’s set to end, and at 9:00 PM it finally did.
It’s 9:00 PM, so Leppard should have 1:45 hours at most, which would have been wonderful, but since that would have been too perfect, the techs had to spend a full half hour fiddling around on stage, so it was only a little before 9:30 that the real point of my weekend trip to the Island finally started. Hellraiser opened the whole event, and right from the start you could tell it was going to be one hell of a party. The sound was fantastic, loud with just the right dose of bass, Elliott had his vocal cords tuned up nicely, just like the rest of the band with their instruments. As a bonus on top of the great sound, they added superb visuals on the screen behind the drummer, with animations of classic Leppard motifs and of course live footage, which gave the whole event an extra dimension. .
A few excellent tracks followed, and Let it go in particular wrapped up the first part in a properly rockin’ way. The second part was songs from the new album Yeah!, where the crowd, despite the almost unbearable heat, didn’t run out of energy and jumped along to 20’th Century Boy, Hangin’ On The Telephone and the current single Rock On. Fittingly for the rock theme, the party went on with a stretched-out version of the great Rocket, followed by a bit of a breather, since for the third part they lined up three top-notch songs with no letup. Armageddon It, Photograph and Animal had Hammersmith shaking. As always, Rock Of Ages was introduced by Rick Allen, the drummer who has been saying the same four opening words for years and years, which hardly anyone still understands today.
And that’s it, well, almost, because of course the encore followed. The ballad When Love & Hate Collide wasn’t exactly the best pick for my taste in a set without any slow numbers, but fine, let the boys play it out as they should, because we were still waiting for one of the key songs of the last twenty years…Pour Some Sugar On Me, which came as the closer to the two-day English tour and at the same time wrapped up the European leg of the Yeah! tour.
The band left a lot of enthusiasm and good vibes in a visibly worn-out crowd, but nobody would have said no to a few more songs. It’s a real shame the set was shorter than expected, but we can thank the London authorities for that, who want a quiet night’s sleep after 10:45 PM.
Setlist
01.Hell Raiser
02.Rock Rock (Till You Drop)
03.Let’s Get Rocked
04.Make Love Like A Man
05.Promises
06.Hysteria
07.Let It Go
08.20’th Century Boy
09.Hanging On The Telephone
10.Rock On
11.Rocket
12.Photograph
13.Armageddon It
14.Animal
15.Rock Of Ages
———encore———-
16.When Love & Hate Collide
17.Pour Some Sugar On Me
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