Def Leppard Reveal Dates for Stadium Tour With Motley Crue

Gabi Chepurny

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As previously reported, Def Leppard will undertake a stadium tour this summer with Motley Crue and Poison, and special guest Joan Jett & the Blackhearts have been added to the bill as well.

Full dates for the tour, which is produced by Live Nation, appear below.

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Def Leppard (pictured above) was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year. While the members of Motley Crue claimed to have signed a legally binding document stating that their 2014-2015 “Farewell” tour would be their last together, that document has never been publicly revealed. Rumors about the group reforming for a tour have been rife in the wake of the successful Netflix biopic “The Dirt,” based on Neil Strauss’ history of the group.

Between 2014 and 2015, Motley Crue fans mourned as merch from The Final Tour proclaimed, “All Bad Things Must Come to an End,” and the band played what everyone thought would be their final shows ever.

Fast forward to an unsuspecting Monday in November of 2019. Following prematurely leaked information of the band’s reunion, Motley Crue announced via the band’s Instagram account that they would indeed be getting back together with a summer stadium tour — simply titled The Stadium Tour — slated for the following year.

At a press conference on Wednesday, December 4 held at SiriusXM’s Hollywood studios, Def Leppard, Poison and The Crue met to discuss the upcoming tour. MC and SiriusXM Radio host Slim Jim Phantom moderated the event as the room filled with rockers.

When asked how it feels to be back together, Crue lead vocalist Vince Neil replied, “It feels great, we haven’t seen each other since the movie premiere, and it’s just great to be back in a room with these guys to talk and joke around, and get that brotherhood back. We’ve known each other longer than we’ve known anybody else, besides our parents and siblings.”

All of the bands continuously echoed this sentiment, speaking of the excitement and positive energy they feel going into the tour. Any previous animosity held by any of the bands members seems to have disappeared in a puff of Aquanet Hairspray.

Said Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen: “This is three bands of the same genre, it’s the MTV generation, and all three bands, and Joan, were all very prominent. So the fact that this has been 30-odd years waiting to happen, and the fact that it’s happening now is immense. There’s an energy already that’s incredible.”

Motley Crue Bassist Nikki Sixx added, “Honestly I don’t think any of us thought when we were on the final tour we would ever get back together. We weren’t really getting along at that point. When we came to the end we broke the band up and everybody went their own ways. I think we really needed that break and it was during the making of The Dirt movie, we started hanging out again together, and I think we really started to realize, without even talking about the music, how much we missed each other. And then that got us to go in the recording studio which is where the whole thing always starts for all of us. We had a blast in the studio and then the movie took off.”

The long-awaited Crue biopic, “The Dirt,” released during March of this year, caused a 350% increase in streams of the bands music across all platforms and brought in audience members in the younger, 18-44 demographic, which now represents 64% of their fan base.

“Our fans were stoked but we also got a new generation of people and that kind of started the conversation,” Sixx continued. “But it really was from the heart. We missed each other, to be honest, and we missed being in a band together. And this opportunity, this tour is, to me, the ultimate tour of the summer. Bret [Michaels of Poison] was saying to me a while ago, if he wasn’t on the bill he’d be going to the show, and I’m with ya on that.”

Def Leppard’s lead singer, Joe Elliot, joked, “The new generation of kids that are coming through, the reason they like it so much is because they were conceived at one of our gigs.”

Much debate has been had over how exactly the members of Motley Crue got out of their Cessation of Touring contract which fans were told barred the members from touring together ever again beyond their final show date at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on December 31, 2015.

When pressed about the contract details, Poison bassist Bobby Dall interjected, “Hey can I step in for a second? Contracts were made to be broken.”

Sixx followed, “I like that answer, thank you.”

Dall continued, “You don’t know how many times the music industry screws over bands so if a band wants to rip up a contract, let ‘em.”

“Plus you know we like to blow shit up!” added Crue drummer Tommy Lee.

On “The Howard Stern Show” in mid-November, the Motley Crue reunion and ensuing tour was leaked by The Black Crowes manager, Mark DiDia, ruining any well-organized strategies the bands camp had in making the major announcement.

When Variety asked how the band would have liked to have made the announcement, Sixx’s tongue-in-cheek response with dripping with comical sarcasm, “We would have announced it here, the way it should have been. It was announced by The Black Crowes manager, which I heard their tour was just cancelled and he got fired, unfortunately, but that doesn’t affect our stadium tour.”

TOUR ITINERARY

Jul 7 MIAMI, FL Hard Rock Stadium
Jul 9 ORLANDO, FL Camping World Stadium
Jul 11 CHARLOTTE, NC Bank of America Stadium
Jul 14 ARLINGTON, TX Globe Life Field
Jul 15 HOUSTON, TX Minute Maid Park
Jul 19 SAN FRANCISCO, CA Oracle Park
Jul 23 SAN DIEGO, CA Petco Park
Jul 25 PHOENIX, AZ State Farm Stadium
Aug 9 ATLANTA, GA SunTrust Park
Aug 11 HERSHEY, PA Hershey Park Stadium
Aug 13 BUFFALO, NY New Era Field
Aug 15 PHILADELPHIA, PA Citizens Bank Park
Aug 16 PITTSBURGH, PA PNC Park
Aug 18 MILWAUKEE, WI Miller Park
Aug 20 DETROIT, MI Comerica Park
Aug 22 WASHINGTON DC Nationals Park
Aug 23 FLUSHING, NY Citi Field
Aug 25 BOSTON, MA Fenway Park*
Aug 28 CHICAGO, IL Wrigley Field
Aug 30 DENVER, CO Coors Field
Sep 2 SEATTLE, WA T-Mobile Park
Sep 5 LOS ANGELES, CA SoFi Stadium

*pre-sales begin December 16 with general on-sale December 20

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