Def Leppard and Narayan Gopal

The first poster that I ever bought in my life was that of Def Leppard. I used to save my lunch money when I was in school to buy cassettes from Def Leppard. At that time, a peacock brand cassettes, one of the original brands found in Nepal cost around NRS 90.00. I bought all their original albums; On through the Night, High & Dry, Pyromania, Hysteria, and Adrenalized. During my early teen, I used to represent myself with their songs, particularly “Let’s get rocked”. As I grew older I stopped listening to the new songs (not only theirs but quit following any band), so the last song that I heard from Def Leppard (I have no idea what albums they were from) were ‘Two Steps Behind’ (perhaps OST from Last Action Hero) and ‘When Love and Hate Collide’. It won’t be unfair to call me musically outmoded, I discuss music with my colleagues at work and call Green Day a new band, so you can see where I stand. Nevertheless, Def Leppard, the band which had such big influence on me during my youth had a concert in New Orleans. This was going to be a great opportunity for me to revive the rock music in me; New Orleans here I come.

New Orleans is two hour east from my place, so I took off from my office at 2:30 hoping to have extra 3 hours to see the city before the concert starts at 7:30 pm. I was driving with Erika (my colleague) and her friend Michele; and we were to catch up with other 3 guys in New Orleans. But we caught our self in huge traffic and just made it to the concert. It was very frustrating; forget the sight seeing, we didn’t even had chance for a dinner. We parked our vehicle at Superdome (football stadium which had housed thousands of Katrina evacuee before its roof crumbled too) and made it to the New Orleans Arena (home of New Orleans Hornets, the basketball team). When we reached inside to the designated seats, the concert had already started.

Journey (a band I never heard of, though when they sang I knew some of their songs, maybe via FM) opened for Def Leppard. It seemed that Journey had a huge following, the crowd sang with them for almost all of their songs. I liked them, but I was more eager on hearing Def Leppard. Finally after 90 minutes of Journey, I could hear Def Leppard.

Def Leppard started with ‘Let’s get rocked’, the very song that had huge influence on my youth. Most of the audience knew Journey more than Def Leppard, so it seemed like I was the only one screaming the words on top of my lungs. But my intensity faded quickly, not even booze could come to my rescue. Not only me, it seemed that Joe Eliot (the band front man) had lost his intensity too. I was surprised to find that I did not enjoy them as much as I expected. One of the bright parts of Def Leppard concert was a fight in a row next to us. I had seen fight’s in Nepalese concert, but here it was totally a new experience. Bunch of cops appeared from nowhere and took the whole section (fighters and others, perhaps as a witness).

I had listened to Def Leppard when I was young, so I might have changed. They might have changed too. But I have to confess that I enjoyed Journey more than them. Most of the people coming out of the concert agreed on that. I was debating in my head, when we were returning (we got back in 2 hours this time, but it was already 3 am), has my taste for music changed or there is something wrong with me. I hope to go to a Metallica concert; if I don’t even enjoy them then I must accept that I lost my taste for rock. I was hoping this Def Leppard concert will revive rock inside me, but I guess I have to give it another shot. Till Metallica or Pink Floyd shows up in the town, I am happily content to listen to great Narayan Gopal and Gulam Ali.