Joe can still pour some sugar

I’VE NEVER been a big fan of bands touring classic albums — mainly because certain songs were put on the B side for a very good reason. There are few albums in the history of music which can claim every song as a hit.

But I guess if you are going to tour an album, it may as well be one that spawned seven hit singles and has sold over 25 million copies worldwide since its release more than 30 years ago — which is exactly the case with Def Leppard’s Hysteria.

The band’s second album took more than three years to complete and was beset by delays — not least the car accident that led to drummer Rick Allen losing his left arm.

It was also one of the seminal albums of my youth. I almost wore away the needle of our record player listening to hits such as Pour Some Sugar On Me, Love Bites, Armageddon It and Animal over and over again.

Thirty years on, it’s lost none of its power. Joe Elliott is still a master of the microphone and entertained the audience with tales of how the various songs found their genesis in pubs and studios around Ireland.

While some songs didn’t quite have the air-punching power of the title track or Rocket, they more than held their own among the hits.

After Hysteria had been exhausted, a short tribute video to guitarist Steve Clark, who died in 1991, was played, before the band returned to the stage for a run-through of their later hits, such as Photograph, Rock of Ages and Let’s Get Rocked. By the end, we all well and truly were.

LINDA MAHER