Def Leppard Must Change to Keep Its No. 1 Spot

What, Def Leppard worry?

Why should it? What’s there to worry about for an act with a resume such as this: -- The band rejuvenated the stodgy metal scene in the wake of the punk revolution.

-- The band is considered by many to be a--if not the-- true successor to Led Zeppelin.

-- The band stood tall in the shadow of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” with a hugely successful album called “Pyromania” in 1984, and then waited as long as Jackson to release a follow-up, “Hysteria,” which is currently outperforming Jackson’s “Bad.” (This week “Hysteria”--with more than 5 million copies in circulation--is No. 2 in Billboard’s LP charts; “Bad” has dropped to No. 30.)

-- For two nights over the weekend, the band had sellout crowds of 15,000 pumping their fists at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre.

Yes folks, Def Leppard--on paper, anyway--truly is the all-around heavy metal world champion of the ‘80s. (Van Halen doesn’t count--it’s really a pop band, not a metal outfit.)

But if Def Leppard wants its name to mean anything in the ‘90s, it had better start getting worried: Challengers to its supremacy are already gaining momentum. On the left there’s the speed-metal contingent, led by Metallica; on the right, the pretty-boy melodeers spearheaded by Bon Jovi; in the middle, the street kids cadre fronted by Guns ‘N’ Roses. (And, of course, the ghost of Zeppelin still hovers over the whole scene.)

Friday, in the first of the Irvine shows, the band didn’t do anything to prove itself ready to hold off the challengers. On the contrary, it looked very much like merely a temporary custodian of the metal flame, not even its true keeper.

Don’t get the wrong idea; Def Leppard can thud, rock and rouse the kids with the best of them. Joe Elliot makes an amiable front man (though his leading the crowd in an inane cheering competition nearly killed whatever momentum the show had) and Rick Allen is certainly the best one-armed drummer since Moulty anchored the Barbarians back in the ‘60s.

But if Def Leppard had put this show head to head with any of the challengers, it wouldn’t have stood a chance--not even against the smarmy, pandering Bon Jovi, which at least has some hooks in its songs. And against Metallica, you can just forget it. Leppard’s repertoire and presence carry virtually none of the aggression and thunder that can stir up a hormonal teen-age crowd the way Metallica did at the recent “Monsters of Rock” extravaganza in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Beyond that, for all the nifty melodies of such tunes as “Hysteria,” and the anthemic posturing of such stompers as “Rock of Ages,” there wasn’t a classic to be found in the whole two-hour-plus Def Leppard show--which means that when this band’s time at the top is over, there will be nothing to remember it by. Led Zeppelin churned out classics in its sleep.

On the plus side, the show was pleasantly devoid of many common metal trappings. The stage was attractive with a Day-Glo design, and--save for the constant smoke and the only-intermittently interesting laser and lighting tricks--there weren’t any stupid special effects.

Best, soloing was kept to a minimum (a good thing, since neither guitarist Phil Collen nor Steve Clark seemed interested in creating more than speedy-finger blurs during their brief showcase spots). Still, this was one of those shows that just sort of evaporate into the night, rather than move on into the ages.

One band Def Leppard doesn’t need to worry about is Europe, the vapid Swedish five-piece that opened the show with a deadly dull set of simplistic rock and hair-tossing. Not much has changed since the band’s lame local debut last year, except for the lead guitarist, who, like his predecessor, seems to think there’s some value in playing “The Flight of the Bumblebee” faster than his fingers can fly. Watching the lights of the cars on the freeway in the distance was more interesting.