Def Leppard + Mötley Crüe + Poison & Joan Jett & Blackhearts at State Farm Stadium

In many ways, Def Leppard were the definitive hard rock band of the ’80s. There were groups that rocked harder, but few captured the spirit of the times quite as well. Emerging in the late ’70s as part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Def Leppard gained a following outside of that scene by toning down their heavy riffs and emphasizing melody. After a couple of strong albums, they were poised for crossover success by the time of 1983’s Pyromania, and skillfully used the fledgling MTV network to their advantage. They reached the pinnacle of their career with 1987’s blockbuster Hysteria, then had another big hit, 1992’s Adrenalize, that defied the mainstream turn toward grunge. After that, the band settled into a pattern of touring exhaustively and releasing an album every few years, maintaining a steady audience and occasionally surprising fans with an album, like 2008’s Yeah!, that harked back to the sound of their glory days, or the oversized 2022 record Diamond Star Halos.

Def Leppard originated in a Sheffield-based group that teenagers Rick Savage (bass) and Pete Willis (guitar) formed in 1977. Vocalist Joe Elliott, a fanatical follower of Mott the Hoople and T. Rex, joined the band several months later, bringing the name Deaf Leopard with him. After a spelling change, the trio, augmented by a now-forgotten drummer, began playing local Sheffield pubs, and within a year the band had added guitarist Steve Clark to the lineup, as well as a new drummer. Later in 1978, they recorded their debut EP, Getcha Rocks Off, and released it on their own label, Bludgeon Riffola. The EP became a word-of-mouth success, earning airplay on the BBC.

Following the release of Getcha Rocks Off, 15-year-old Rick Allen was added as the band’s permanent drummer, and Def Leppard quickly became the toast of the British music weeklies. They soon signed with AC/DC‘s manager, Peter Mensch, who helped them secure a contract with Mercury Records. On Through the Night, the band’s full-length debut, was released in 1980 and instantly became a hit in the U.K., also earning significant airplay in the U.S., where it reached number 51 on the charts. Over the course of the year, Def Leppard relentlessly toured Britain and America, playing their own shows while also opening concerts for Ozzy Osbourne, Sammy Hagar, and Judas Priest. High ‘n’ Dry followed in 1981 and became the group’s first platinum album in the U.S., thanks to MTV’s strong rotation of “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak.”

As the band recorded the follow-up to High ‘n’ Dry with producer Mutt Lange, Pete Willis was fired from the group because of his alcoholism, and Phil Collen, a former guitarist for Girl, was hired to replace him. The resulting album, 1983’s Pyromania, became an unexpected blockbuster, due not only to Def Leppard’s skillful, melodic metal, but also to MTV’s repeated airing of “Photograph” and “Rock of Ages.” Pyromania went on to sell ten million copies, establishing Def Leppard as one of the most popular bands in the world. Despite their success, they were about to enter a trying time in their career. Following an extensive international tour, the group reentered the studio to record the follow-up, but producer Lange was unavailable, so they began sessions with Jim Steinman, the man responsible for Meat Loaf‘s Bat Out of Hell. The pairing turned out to be ill-advised, so the bandmembers turned to their former engineer, Nigel Green. One month into recording, Allen lost his left arm in a New Year’s Eve car accident. The arm was reattached, but it had to be amputated once an infection set in.

Def Leppard’s future looked cloudy without a drummer, but by the spring of 1985 — just a few months after his accident — Allen began learning to play a custom-made electronic kit assembled for him by Simmons. The band soon resumed recording, and within a few months, Lange was back on board; having judged all the existing tapes inferior, he ordered the band to begin work all over again. Recording sessions continued throughout 1986, and that summer, the group returned to the stage for the European Monsters of Rock tour. Def Leppard finally completed their fourth album, now titled Hysteria, early in 1987. The record was released that spring to lukewarm reviews, with many critics claiming that the album compromised Leppard’s metal roots for sweet pop flourishes. Accordingly, Hysteria was slow out of the starting gates — “Women,” the first single, failed to really take hold — but the release of “Animal” helped the album gather steam. The song became Def Leppard’s first Top 40 hit in the U.K., but more importantly, it launched a string of six straight Top 20 hits in the U.S., which also included “Hysteria,” “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” “Love Bites,” “Armageddon It,” and “Rocket,” the latter of which arrived in 1989, a full two years after the release of Hysteria. During those two years, Def Leppard’s presence was unavoidable — they were the kings of high school metal, ruling the pop charts and MTV, and teenagers and bands alike replicated their teased hair and ripped jeans, even when the grimy hard rock of Guns N’ Roses took hold in 1988.

Hysteria proved to be the peak of Leppard’s popularity, yet their follow-up remained eagerly awaited in the early ’90s, as the band took a break from the road and set to work on a new record. During the recording process, however, Steve Clark died from an overdose of alcohol and drugs. Clark had historically battled alcohol, and following their Hysteria heyday, his bandmates forced him to take a sabbatical. Although he did enter rehab, Clark’s habits continued, and his abuse was so crippling that Collen began recording the majority of the band’s guitar leads. Following Clark’s death, Def Leppard resolved to finish their forthcoming album as a quartet, releasing Adrenalize in the spring of 1992. Adrenalize was greeted with mixed reviews, and even though the album debuted at number one and contained several successful singles, including the Top 20 hits “Let’s Get Rocked” (notable for having one of the first ever CGI music videos) and “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad,” the record was a commercial disappointment in the wake of Pyromania and Hysteria. After its release, the group added former Whitesnake guitarist Vivian Campbell to the lineup, thus resuming Def Leppard’s two-guitar attack.

In 1993, Def Leppard issued the rarities collection Retro Active, which yielded another Top 20 hit with the acoustic ballad “Two Steps Behind.” Two years later, the group released the greatest-hits collection Vault while preparing for their sixth album. Slang arrived in the spring of 1996, and while it proved more adventurous than its predecessor, it was greeted with indifference, indicating that Leppard’s heyday had indeed passed, and they were now simply a very popular cult band. Undaunted, Leppard soldiered on, returning to their patented pop-metal sound for Euphoria, which was released in June of 1999. Despite the success of “Promises,” the record failed to produce any additional hits, resulting in a return to adult pop balladry on 2002’s X. The two-disc Rock of Ages: The Definitive Collection arrived in 2005, followed in 2006 by Yeah!, a strong collection of covers.

In 2008, the guys released their tenth studio album, Songs from the Sparkle Lounge, which debuted at number five and was supported by a lucrative summer tour. Material from that tour helped make up the bulk of 2011’s Mirror Ball: Live & More, a three-disc live album containing a full concert, three new studio recordings, and DVD footage. Another live album followed two years later: Viva! Hysteria found Def Leppard running through their 1987 blockbuster in its entirety on the first disc, and a collection of early, rarely played material on the second. In 2015, the band released Def Leppard, their 11th studio album and first collection of original music since 2008.

In February 2017, the group issued And There Will Be a Next Time, a live album culled from the Def Leppard supporting tour. Later that year, a Super Deluxe Edition of Hysteria came out in celebration of the record’s 30th anniversary. Further repackagings continued in 2018 with a box set of their ’80s albums titled The Collection, Vol. 1 and The Story So Far: The Best of Def Leppard, a multi-disc set that included the band’s first four studio albums and various rarities. The next year saw the release of The Collection, Vol. 2, a set of their ’90s records, and The Story So Far, Vol. 2: Hits & B-Sides, which picked up where the first volume left off with material from the band’s ’90s run and beyond. Def Leppard continued to tour on a regular basis and played a Las Vegas residency, then in 2020 issued a collection of their first two albums plus a live set and BBC sessions titled The Early Years 79-81. After this slew of live and reissued material, the band finally released another studio album in 2022, their 12th. Entitled Diamond Star Halos, it was heralded by the barnstorming, old-school promo track “Kick” and featured two collaborations with Alison Krauss. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

MÖTLEY CRÜE is The World’s Most Notorious Rock Band. Hailing from Los Angeles, CA, the quartet—Vince Neil (vocals), Mick Mars (guitars), Nikki Sixx (bass), and Tommy Lee (drums)— has commandeered the rock pantheon for 40 years.

They’ve accumulated worldwide album sales exceeding 100m, 7 platinum and multi-platinum albums, 22 Top 40 mainstream rock hits, 6 Top 20 pop singles, 3 GRAMMY nominations, 4 New York Times best-sellers and even landed a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

With utmost success from their Netflix biopic, The Dirt and its soundtrack, the band landed another #1 album on iTunes and Top 10 worldwide with 22 chart-topping singles and 7 albums on the charts. Its massive global success saw Mötley Crüe’s popularity soar to new highs, catapulting the band’s music back to the top of the worldwide charts with the younger 18-44 demographic now representing 64% of the band’s fanbase.

In the six months following the release of THE DIRT, Mötley Crüe has celebrated a meteoric rise of almost 350% increase in streams of their music across all streaming platforms. Known for their iconic live performances, they’ve sold-out countless tours across the globe in front of millions of fans with groundbreaking production highlights such as Tommy Lee’s, Crüecifly-Drum-Rollercoaster and Nikki Sixx’s Flame-Throwing-Bass.

In a decade fueled by party anthems and power ballads, Poison enjoyed a great amount of popularity, with only Bon Jovi and Def Leppard outselling them. While the group had a long string of pop-metal hits, they soon became just as renowned for their stage show, and continued to be a major attraction long after the ’80s came to a close (bringing the commercial downfall of pop-metal with it). Meanwhile, frontman Bret Michaels reinvented himself as a reality TV star in 2007, and his involvement in several TV shows — particularly Rock of Love, Celebrity Apprentice, and Life as I Know It — helped maintain the band’s popularity in concert.

Formerly known as Paris, Poison was formed in 1984 by Bret Michaels, bassist Bobby Dall, and drummer Rikki Rockett. After leaving their hometown of Harrisburg, PA, and resettling in L.A., the boys began holding auditions for a fourth member. Guitarist C.C. Deville got the gig, famously beating out future Guns N’ Roses bandmate Slash in the process. With their lineup intact, Poison embraced a glammy, androgynous image and began playing shows in L.A., becoming masters of self-promotion and D.I.Y. advertising in the process. The hard work won them a contract with Enigma Records in 1986, and they released their first album, Look What the Cat Dragged In, that summer. The record spawned a pair of Top 40 hits, “Talk Dirty to Me” and “I Won’t Forget You,” and sold over two-million copies within a year of its release.

The band was already quite popular by the end of 1987, but 1988’s Open Up & Say…Ahhh! proved to be Poison’s commercial breakthrough, due to the massive hits “Fallen Angel,” “Nothin’ But a Good Time,” and “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” (which became the band’s first chart-topping single). After a prosperous tour alongside David Lee Roth, the group returned to the studio to record Flesh and Blood in 1990. The album, which included the number three hit “Unskinny Bop” and the number four ballad “Something to Believe In,” was another multi-platinum success, but it also signaled the end of Poison’s glory days. While touring in support of Flesh and Blood (as documented on the double-disc concert album Swallow This Live), the band began falling apart, and an infamous appearance on MTV showed Deville performing “Talk Dirty to Me” with his guitar unplugged. The band broke into a brawl backstage after the disastrous performance.

Shortly after the release of Swallow This Live, Poison fired Deville due to his increasing addiction to drugs and alcohol. His replacement, 21 year-old Richie Kotzen, made his commercial debut with the band on 1993’s Native Tongue. Despite some strong reviews and a hit single, “Stand,” the album proved to be a commercial disappointment. Kotzen was fired during the subsequent tour, having reportedly struck up an illicit relationship with Rikki Rockett’s fiancé, and solo artist/session guitarist Blues Saraceno became Poison’s third guitarist. The band recorded its fifth studio album, Crack a Smile, for an intended release in 1996, but the record was shelved and replaced with the Greatest Hits: 1986-1996 disc instead. Toward the end of that year, Saraceno left and Deville returned to the band, a move that resulted in a successful reunion tour during the summer of 1999. The Crack a Smile sessions were finally released the following spring, followed by Power to the People, which paired five new songs with 12 live tracks from the band’s comeback tour. However, another tour was cut short by an accident that left Dall with serious back surgery.

Following Dall’s lengthy recovery, the band stepped into the studio and recorded Hollyweird, which was released in the summer of 2002. The following tour was promoted as a nostalgic experience and was funded by VH1, laying the brickwork for a lucrative relationship between the band and the television channel. Deville would later appear in the network’s sixth season of The Surreal Life, while Michaels was awarded his own dating show, Rock of Love with Bret Michaels. Hollyweird’s reception was lukewarm at best, and Poison spent some time out of the spotlight while Michaels and Rockett released solo albums. They reconvened in 2006, celebrating their 20th anniversary with a nationwide tour and another greatest-hits album. Propelled by Michaels‘ new status as a reality TV star, The Best of Poison: 20 Years of Rock debuted inside the Billboard Top 20, a feat the band hadn’t accomplished since Native Tongue. The following year brought similar luck, with the band’s seventh studio effort — a covers album titled Poison’d! — moving over 20,000 units during its first week. ~ Barry Weber & Andrew Leahey, Rovi

Joan Jett grew up during a time when rock ‘n’ roll was off limits to girls and women, but as a teenager, she promptly blew the door to the boys’ club off its hinges. After forming the Blackhearts in 1979, with whom Jett has become a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, she has had eight platinum and gold albums and nine Top 40 singles, including “Bad Reputation,” “I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll,” “I Hate Myself For Loving You,” and “Crimson and Clover.” With a career that has spanned music, film, television, Broadway, and humanitarianism, Joan Jett remains a potent force and inspiration to generations of fans worldwide. As a producer, she has overseen seminal albums by Bikini Kill, and the Germs‘ LA punk masterpiece ‘GI.’ Jett and Kenny Laguna (her longtime producer and music partner) co-founded Blackheart Records from the trunk of Kenny’s Cadillac after rejections from no less than 23 labels. 40 years later, Blackheart is a thriving entertainment company producing music, film and television, and continues to champion emerging bands. Joan Jett and the Blackhearts continue touring the globe with headlining shows alongside fellow rock legends like The Who, Green Day, Heart, and Foo Fighters. After two COVID-19 postponements, the group has returned to the road for The Stadium Tour with Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe and Poison. ‘Bad Reputation,’ a documentary about Jett’s life, premiered to critical acclaim at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and is now available for streaming.