Jan 30, 2016 – So… Def Leppard hosted a cruise, something I might have heard about 10 seconds on, but really didn’t know was going on. Then again, what do I know these days? I barely have time to follow the real news let alone the rock news. And I mean seriously, if I’m going to be a rock and music host, that needs to change. While I work on that change, J told me of Joe Elliott, singer for Def Leppard, losing his voice while on the Def Leppard’s cruise shows. I was thinking I’d find and post fun videos of the back-ups the band found to help out, perhaps even of Vivian Campbell and Phil Colin, the band’s guitar players, who pitched in on lead vocals too. Instead, I came across an article in Forbes talking about the change-up in singers. And really, I just love it when Forbes does a rock article. Nobody thinks of Forbes as a source for rock news — you know Forbes being so business-centric — but when they do it, they do it right.

So this Forbes reporter goes on the Def Leppard cruise. Doesn’t that sound like a premise to a joke too? Anyway, in his story, he tells the readers of his many Def Leppard t-shirts and gear, he calls himself a fan boy, so this is no ordinary pencil pusher. And how many of us can relate to that? He talks about the people on the cruise, the women particularly, 40 and 50-year-olds dressing in their ’80s best to try to get a cabin upgrade. Seriously, even that makes him legit. Then he talks about how the cruise didn’t sell, how the album didn’t stay on the charts more than a week even though it’s good, and it really is. (Feel free to share your thoughts on the record here if you wish; I think it’s great by the way, and yes, I should and will do a review.) Then he talked about the oddity it was to have Joe introduce “Def Leppard” with back-up band-singers filling in for the event. His unstated but clear emotion was one of disappointment, of not liking the unpredictable nature of the event. He concluded with his statement that at least he (and the people on the cruise) “got to see the one Leppard performance in 39 years of its existence without Elliott fronting the band.”

Read his words here: http://fortune.com/2016/01/28/def-leppard-cruise/

What I took from this was this overwhelming sense of uneasiness, of a crowd of people saying “what the hell is this?” And I took away a sense that these guitar players, Viv and Phil, both not the originals, know the importance of their singer. Singers matter. And Def Leppard has known that for all of its 39 years.