Having just embraced - or endured - aging glam-metallers Poison and former Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil, E-Ville is now throwing open its doors to another band that's as synonymous with the '80s as Members Only jackets and Miami Vice.
But make no mistake - Def Leppard isn't some novelty reunion act, stumbling out of rehab to make a fast buck off the resurgence of interest in all things big-haired and tight-Spandexed.
"All these other bands from the '80s are re-forming and doing package tours, and we never went away," said guitarist Viv Campbell, his Belfast-bred lilt coming down the line from the band's stop last night in Grande Prairie.
Although the band plays the Shaw Conference Centre tonight, you could be forgiven for thinking that this particular Leppard had in fact become extinct.
LITTLE AIRPLAY
Aside from the classic rock stations that regularly throw Pour Some Sugar On Me, Let's Get Rocked or Animal into the rotation, the once-mighty Def Leppard gets little in the way of radio airplay these days. And virtually none at all for their 10th and most recent album, X.
Campbell's bandmates: Joe Elliott, Phil Collen, Rick Savage and Rick Allen realized early in this X World Tour that a lot of fans didn't actually know any of the songs from X. So they culled all but two or three of the new tunes from the set list, and filled in the gaps with more classics from the Pyromania, Hysteria and Adrenalize days.
"It's understandable," said Campbell. "People have not heard the (new) record, it hasn't been on the radio, it barely sold ... I mean, our record company (Island/Def Jam) basically gave up on the record.
"It's especially depressing because I genuinely believe it's the best record Def Leppard has made in 15 years."
But the early albums, like 1981's High N' Dry and 1983's Pyromania, are untouchable. As it turns out, both were produced by Mutt Lange, perhaps best known to today's Canadians as the spotlight-shunning Mr. Shania Twain.
"He's actually a great, creative human being and he's very inspiring," said Campbell. "I absolutely think Mutt has it spot-on - who the hell wants to be famous?
"He's got it so right. He gets to write all these songs, record all these great records, sit back and collect the royalties. And let someone else take the flak for it."
TECHNOPHILE
It's almost too easy to get artists wound up about the current state of the music industry, but the canny Campbell - who played with Whitesnake and Dio before joining Def Leppard in 1992 after the accidental overdose death of guitarist Steve Clark - knows of what he speaks.
"It's summarized by this whole American Idol thing," he said. "Anyone who thinks there's any spark of creativity left in the music business is delusional. It's pathetic."
A self-confessed technophile, Campbell sees things like Apple's recently introduced pay-per-download iTunes service as a future antidote to the stranglehold that the music industry has on the creative pulse of artists.
But Def Leppard has been through worse. From Steve Clark's sudden death to drummer Rick Allen's loss of his left arm in a 1984 car accident, the band has persevered. Let's hope they'll be around to see the day when good music can again be easily enjoyed by all.
"The band survived Rick losing his arm, the band survived Steve's death," Campbell said. "Let's see if we can survive the death of the music industry."
