Gig review: Def Leppard + Extreme at BP Pulse Live, Birmingham

Live review: Def Leppard and Extreme at BP Pulse Live, Birmingham, on Saturday July 4 2026

TONIGHT was supposed to be the first of an almighty double header for what might be termed “classic rock fans”. 

That is, Def Leppard and Extreme on a Saturday night followed by Sammy Hagar, Joan Jett and local upstarts Jayler on Sunday. People traveled from Europe and Scandinavia, paid over the odds at the adjoining hotel (this is developed land out near the airport which feels like Florida) and with Resorts World in between their hotel rooms and the former Birmingham NEC, they could pretend they were in Vegas.

Only one problem though: Hagar didn’t sell enough tickets. Jett split off and did her own tour and Hagar moved to Wolverhampton on the Monday night, leaving the fans holding the baby (and a large hotel and travel bill).

I met a Swedish couple who, like me, just bit the bullet and stayed on on Sunday for a relaxing day in the Crowne Plaza before going to Wolverhampton for Sammy. It wasn’t quite the same, though – why are we in Birmingham again, with the Leppard boys playing all over the country? Blame Hagar…

Doors at 5.30 is a scam to get you to buy merch, food and drinks. Unlike most arenas, there is a massive area at one end which can accommodate almost as many people as you can fit in the performance area – and that’s 14,000. Two hours after ‘doors’ no Extreme. I did, however, enjoy an usher telling the person next to me how Prince once missed curfew with his private jet, chucked a tantrum backstage and came back on with the house lights up, playing to a few hundred stragglers.

When you go to gigs alone … I won’t bore you but there’s no-one to mind your spot and they have a thing in this country where there’s a line on the floor and you have to stand within it. Go to the loo, Extreme finally come on, and they won’t let you back to where you were before.

The result is that I don’t play too much attention and kind of wander around, although this is a year minus one from the day Nuno Bettencourt shone at Back To The Beginning and it’s not lost on them, me or many of those around us. There’s an Ozzy medley and it’s like every other Extreme show I’ve every been to. I like them, they’re one of my bands, but it’s Van Halen minus the passion, spontaneity and libido, isn’t it? I’ve never had goosebumps at Extreme show.

Nuno will return to the stage to join Def Leppard on an extended version of “Slang”.

You probably need another gushing Def Leppard concert review like you need a hole in the head. Suffice to say, I saw Def Leppard play what was essentially a school gymnasium in Newport, Wales on February 15, 2003. Supporting was a hot new band called The Darkness. This size venue is now about the smallest they play. And there’ve had precisely no global hits since.

If you ask them what’s changed, they’ll say they’re very good and you’ll think that’s churlish and evasive because really we’ve all just got older, more nostalgic and have more disposable income. And that, we think, is what’s changed.

But on tonight’s evidence, the fact that they’re very good might actually be a factor. Word of mouth still works. When TouTube videos sound like clips from 1987 … well, you’re not going to deter anyone, are you?

The setlist is the same as the previous concert and the next concert. The harmonies are pitch perfect. “Promises” and even “White Lightning” – deep cuts but songs I love – sound a tiny bit thin arrangement-wise. But that’s quibbling. Phil Collen says Joe Elliott spends three hours warming up his voice – these guys treat performing rock’n’roll like an athletic endeavour.

Between bands I was able to amble down the front, on the opposite side of the stage to where I was when nature called a few minutes before Extreme came on. Def Leppard don’t use the full width of the stage which is interesting – there are black cloth barriers preventing them from getting close to where I am.

Joe does appear in the crowd at one stage, though, escorted through the seated section by a bouncer or two for a few high fives.

Def Leppard have got bigger as a live draw without having any hits by outlasting and outperforming their competitors. They are so good that word of mouth (and YouTube) is their biggest ally.

When Elliott finishes up by saying “It just gets better – and better”, it’s not spruiking. By then, it’s a self-evident fact. What’s changed since 2003 is everything but Def Leppard.