Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe and Poison came together at SiriusXM’s Los Angeles headquarters last week to announce The Stadium Tour, which will take them all across North America in the summer of 2020.
It was a rare union of three of the most popular groups from the Eighties hard rock scene, and Def Leppard have posted a video taking fans behind the scenes of the summit.
It begins with Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott arriving at the press conference in the middle of a rainstorm. “I left Dublin, 53 degrees, blue sky,” he says to the camera. “Hello everyone. I’m in Los Angeles and it’s fucking pissing it down.”
You then see the rest of the band show up to a photoshoot with the guys in Mötley Crüe and Poison (opening act Joan Jett was oddly absent) and catch up with one another. The event happened to come just a few days before the Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen turned 62, and the video captures members of the band’s team giving him cupcakes and singing “Happy Birthday.”
“Finally, the news is out,” Leppard bassist Rick Savage says to the camera. “It’s been difficult trying to sit on this for the last few few weeks, months, whenever. But yes, we’re here to launch the summer tour, The Stadium Tour with Joan Jett, Poison and Mötley Crüe. [We’re] really, really excited about the whole thing. I’m just so pleased that now the news is officially out. It’ll be the summer tour to end all summer tours.”
That same day, Elliott phoned up Rolling Stone and spoke about Mötley Crüe’s decision to dissolve their supposed “cessation of touring agreement” and hit the road again. “I told Nikki that when he signed it, ‘You guys are just Bowie, Sinatra, Cher, all rolled into one,’” he said. “It’s theater. And those guys are theatrical. Contracts are there to be torn up. That’s what they are. People break them all the time in sports. Why can’t you break one in music?”