Def Leppard, Styx, Foreigner offer a musical time machine

DEF LEPPARD, STYX AND FOREIGNER, USANA Amphitheatre, Friday.

The past caught up to the present Friday night when Def Leppard, Styx and Foreigner came to town — H.G. Wells would have been proud.

The four-hour concert was a musical time machine as the three bands played their hits, some of which were originally released some 30 years ago.

In fact, the only new song played during the night was "Everything All the Time," by Styx. And even that song complemented the other Stygian hits such as "Too Much Time on My Hands" and "Come Sail Away."

Foreigner started things off right.

The band now consists of founder/guitarist Mick Jones, vocalist Kelly Hanson, bassist Jeff Pilson, keyboardist Jeff Jacobs, saxophonist/guitarist Thom Gimbel and drummer Jason Bonham (although Bonham was replaced by the band's drum tech during Friday's show). But the lineup difference didn't stop the band from playing one of the best shows of their career.

Hanson's vocals were on par with original vocalist Lou Gramm.

"Double Vision," "Head Games," "Cold as Ice," "Dirty White Boy" and "Feels Like the First Time" were just a few of the songs that got the audience (still filtering into the amphitheater) primed for the rest of the evening.

"Urgent" and "Hot Blooded" were also added into the mix. But it was the extended version of "Juke Box Hero," which featured a bit of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" as an interlude, that brought the audience to its feet.

Styx's set started off a bit slow. "Blue Collar Man" dragged, but the power-chord symphony of "The Grand Illusion" got things on track.

Keyboardist/vocalist Lawrence Gowan, bassist Ricky Phillips, drummer Todd Suchermann and guitarists James Young and Tommy Shaw flipped guitar picks into the audience and played "Fooling Yourself," "Miss America" and, of course, "Come Sail Away" and "Renegade."

It's been nearly a decade since the band ousted founding member Dennis DeYoung. And while Gowan's voice leans more to the shrill side of the spectrum, the audience didn't seem to mind.

Def Leppard — vocalist Joe Elliott, bassist Rick Savage and guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell — had access to a stage extension where they played "Two Steps Behind." Just prior, Elliott tipped his hat to the Osmonds with an excerpt from "Crazy Horses."

The band, as usual, didn't play anything from its first album, "On Through the Night," but did touch its album "High 'n' Dry" with "Mirror, Mirror (Look Into My Eyes)," an acoustic sing-along version of "Bringin' on the Heartbreak," which flared into an electric ending and segued into the instrumental "Switch 625."

The band did "Photograph," "Foolin'" and "Rock of Ages" from the album "Pyromania." But it was the 1987 best-seller "Hysteria" that got the most attention. The album's title track, as well as "Animal," "Excitable," "Rocket," "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Armageddon It" were all played to the audience's heart's content.

And everything old became new again.

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E-mail: scott@desnews.com

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