I’ll admit it, I was a huge Def Leppard fan back in the 80s.  When I first heard On Through The Night on the radio, I was hooked, and I was a first day purchaser of their records up until Hysteria.  After that, I moved onto other bands but I still have a soft spot for that early Def Leppard.  The DVD package is definitely great value for your money.  Back in the days of VHS, there was the Historia release, and then you had the Live: In the Round, In Your Face, both available for purchase separately.  In the advent of DVDs, the band saw fit to put them out on one DVD with some bonus material to boot.  Of the two features, I like the Historia part better as it contained the material I preferred.  You get all of their videos starting with “Hello America” all the way through “Love Bites." The videos from High ‘N’ Dry were the best of the bunch and were basically a performance video with the studio tracks dubbed over them.  This was before they became MTV darlings with Pyromania.  As bonus material, they added videos from Slang and Euphoria to round out the collection.  Those were the latest releases at the time this DVD came out. 

The live concert portion of this DVD package was recorded on the Hysteria tour in Denver, and it does show its age.  Joe Elliot is rocking a mean mullet (as we all were in 1987), and the stage clothes were horrendous.  But, when you look past those things, the video captures a band firing on all cylinders.  The lighting and sound are all great, and it really showcases their “in the round” staging (hence the title).  While all the material is good, they only play “Bringin’ On The Heartbreak” from their first two records, which deserve more focus in the set list.  My only other complaint is that the concert is not complete.  I saw the tour in Rosemont, Illinois and the show was a bit longer. So, my thought is that they recorded the whole show but because of video limitations, they were not able to present the whole thing.  I understand that, but when formats change and you can add them in, why not present the whole show as it was played?  Those are minor complaints, because as I mentioned earlier, the band did us fans a solid by releasing both videos in one package without making us spend more money on two separate releases.   

This review is available in book (paperback and hardcover) form in Music Street Journal: 2021  Volume 1. More information and purchase links can be found at: garyhillauthor.com/Music-Street-Journal-2021.