I went to the Def Leppard / Bryan Adams concert on June 3rd at Municipal Stadium in San Jose with Shawnna, Dan and Liz. This is the stadium where the San Jose Giants play, so it's not that big of a venue. The stage was relatively small, so there weren't any elaborate set designs - just enough room to rock. The weather was perfect (sunny, but not too hot) and there were about 8,000 people there.
Since the show was general admission, I was able to get fairly close to the front. During Def Leppard, I was about 10 people from the stage. Def Leppard looked just like what they are - aging rock stars from the '80s, but they still sounded great. Since they were promoting a new greatest hits album (Rock of Ages: The definitive Collection), they played all of their classic songs - Pour Some Sugar On Me, Rocket, Hysteria, Love Bites, Photograph, Foolin', Too Late for Love, Women, Rock of Ages, Armageddon It, Have You Even Needed Someone So Bad, Bringin' on the Heartbreak, etc. They seemed to be having a good time and the crowd was fairly responsive. Rick Allen was great on drums as usual - who says you need two arms to play drums? Joe Elliott sounded good, but not great. He kept putting his hand up to his ear to find his pitch during some of the "high" songs. They played for about 1 hr 15 minutes total, including 1 encore.
When Def Leppard finished, a bunch of people in the crowd left (probably to go pee) so I was able to move up to about 5 people from the stage for Bryan Adams. Bryan Adams played his straight up rock 'n roll music for about the same amount of time as Def Leppard and the crowd seemed to respond even more than for Def Leppard. It could have been because he was closing the show and people tend to get a little less inhibited (and more drunk) as the night goes on, but the crowd really belted out all of the classics he sang - Summer of '69, Heaven, Straight from the Heart, Run to You, The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You, 18 'Til I Die, (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, Can't Stop This Thing We Started, etc. He sounded great and put on a good show, but I thought it was a little strange that all the members of the band looked the same - 5 white guys, short haircuts, tight black shirts, dark blue jeans. Anyway, when they left the stage prior to the encore, the drummer (Michael Curry) threw one of his sticks into the audience and I got it :-)
Since the show was general admission, I was able to get fairly close to the front. During Def Leppard, I was about 10 people from the stage. Def Leppard looked just like what they are - aging rock stars from the '80s, but they still sounded great. Since they were promoting a new greatest hits album (Rock of Ages: The definitive Collection), they played all of their classic songs - Pour Some Sugar On Me, Rocket, Hysteria, Love Bites, Photograph, Foolin', Too Late for Love, Women, Rock of Ages, Armageddon It, Have You Even Needed Someone So Bad, Bringin' on the Heartbreak, etc. They seemed to be having a good time and the crowd was fairly responsive. Rick Allen was great on drums as usual - who says you need two arms to play drums? Joe Elliott sounded good, but not great. He kept putting his hand up to his ear to find his pitch during some of the "high" songs. They played for about 1 hr 15 minutes total, including 1 encore.
When Def Leppard finished, a bunch of people in the crowd left (probably to go pee) so I was able to move up to about 5 people from the stage for Bryan Adams. Bryan Adams played his straight up rock 'n roll music for about the same amount of time as Def Leppard and the crowd seemed to respond even more than for Def Leppard. It could have been because he was closing the show and people tend to get a little less inhibited (and more drunk) as the night goes on, but the crowd really belted out all of the classics he sang - Summer of '69, Heaven, Straight from the Heart, Run to You, The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You, 18 'Til I Die, (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, Can't Stop This Thing We Started, etc. He sounded great and put on a good show, but I thought it was a little strange that all the members of the band looked the same - 5 white guys, short haircuts, tight black shirts, dark blue jeans. Anyway, when they left the stage prior to the encore, the drummer (Michael Curry) threw one of his sticks into the audience and I got it :-)
Overall, I had a blast and was very glad I went. Although the stage was small and the sound could have been better, I thought it was a great show. Of course, being close to the stage makes the experience that much better.
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