This is almost as terrible as I hoped.

A one-off show for the Teenage Cancer Trust sees Def Leppard return to the Albert Hall for the first time since 1989, and their first (and only) show for months. After the past two years touring America endlessly, playing county fairs, car parks, and dull ampitheatres – hey, it’s a gig, after all – few bands seem to have fallen artistically so far or so hard as this band have.

On the face of it, the opening salvo of mostly new material includes such generally forgettable stodge as “Man Enough”, “Rock On”, “Dangerous”, “Lets Go”, and so, all sound like mid 90’s b-sides. The choruses are like all the ones on “Hysteria” but not as good. The lyrics come from the ip-dip-dog-shit school of rhyming, and as far as I can work out, have no meaning whatsoever, built up syllable-by-syllable, to sound like English. But this is phonetic rock ; it looks and sounds about right, but lyrically is very wrong. At the heart of all this bombast and blast is a void : there’s no substance, and Def Leppard are possibly the most brilliantly meaningless band of all time. Like an 80’s comedy, switch your brain off, engage 0% critical thinking and fire up your air guitar. It’s candyfloss rock.

In many ways, it would have been better if they had split in late 1993, taken a twenty year sabbatical to eat tofu, go to the gym and drive cars, and then reappear as a glorious memory. Instead, the band stubbornly plugged on with um, not-good albums. If anything Def Leppard are the prime example of a band that was made redundant with the opening notes of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” But somehow never quite realised it. Who clung on like some kind of rock cockroach, stubbornly surviving every moment. Surviving simply through not dying.

At about the halfway point, the set jettisons any attempt at currency, as the last of the newer songs (that is, the ones recorded after Bill Clinton became President) is laid to rest. The audience clearly isn’t that bothered or interested in the new songs – myself included – despite having paid a considerable sum to attend. The audience clearly want the Def Leppard of their youth and to enjoy that fully. You’ve never more than 10 minutes from a staggeringly big hit – and that’s what the crowd want. In December, that’s what the crowd get when the band play Hysteria in full for its 31st anniversary. For now, Def Leppard are playing their most recent live album, in full in order (sort of), live in front of your eyes.

Sure, as a 15 year old who’d never spoken to a woman, they were fantastic. But what Def Leppard were, and what they thought they were, were very different things. Def Leppard could never have been a serious band ; that wasn’t their skillset. On the rare occasions they tried it – “Gods of War”, “White Lightning”, most of their risible attempt at artistic ambulance-chasing that was “Slang” – they fell flat on their face so hard you could hear the thud from the dark side of the moon. Def Leppard were, and should have embraced, their utter artistic shallowness. Its bubblegum rock, with next to no self-awareness, and whereas some acts both understood how ridiculous and funny their genre is – and acknowledged it – Def Leppard seem stuck to either being so sincere they are either hopelessly isolated from the world around them, or are method actors to outreach Daniel Day Lewis. In short, they don’t seem to know their limitations : that they can’t make serious art, and that their shallow rock is ludicrous. Good, but the musical equivalent of an average Transformers movie.

In the meantime, Rick Savage and Phil Collen and Vivien Campbell and Rick Allen and Joe Elliott pound away in spangly Union Jack vests, leather jackets, and generally look like a band of retired millionaire businessmen who joined a rock band of bored dads after leaving the rat race of Canary Wharf aged 48. I doubt anyone that has ever grown up has ever had hair that big (and I’m fairly convinced there’s a transplant or two on stage), or jackets so shiny. The stage looks, at times, like some kind of spangly science fiction musical. Around the stage, three video screens project fake speakers, or huge skulls : I look at it occasionally, and try to work out, what does this mean? I quickly deduce it doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s not that I’m not getting it. It’s that there’s nothing to get. I’m not trying to be harsh, but Def Leppard are the oldest adolescents in the world. Strip away the packaging and the bombast and there's nothing actually there but air and vapour. They're not even, on the face of it, artistically smart enough to be knowingly stupid, but more just not quite smart enough to be knowingly stupid.

I’m looking for something, but it isn’t there to be found. Def Leppard are entertainment, not artists, and they craft pop music with guitars, and my search is probably about as fruitful as looking for any societal allegories in the work of Pizza Express. You have to let go of any agenda higher than ‘Lets Get Rocked’, and embrace the noise. It’s great fun, with giggles and absurdity, but it isn’t anything other than that. Sometimes you laugh with the joke. Sometimes you laugh at the joke. Sometimes you don’t even know you’re the joke. Sometimes you just laugh anyway. That’s entertainment.

Won’t Get Fooled Again (over intro tape)
Let’s Go
Animal
Let It Go
Dangerous
Foolin’
Love Bites
Armageddon It
Rock On
Man Enough
When Love And Hate Collide
Rocket
Bringin’ On The Heartbreak
Switch 625
Hysteria / Heroes
Lets Get Rocked
Pour Some Sugar On Me
Rock Of Ages
Photograph