DEF LEPPARD Performs With out VIVIAN CAMPBELL In Mexico; PHIL COLLEN’s Guitar Tech JOHN ZOCCO Steps In

Veteran British rockers DEF LEPPARD performed their first live performance of 2025 final night time (Saturday, January 18) at Feria Estatal De León in León, Mexico. As was the case with the band’s October 14, 2024 non-public present in Nashville (as a part of the Daimler Truck Buyer Appreciation Occasion),guitarist Vivian Campbell was unable to hitch his bandmates on the León gig and was changed by John Zocco, who’s Phil Collen‘s guitar tech.

Previous to launching into the tune “Foolin'”, which was the fourth tune of DEF LEPPARD‘s set in León, DEF LEPPARD singer Joe Elliott informed the group that Campbell needed to miss the efficiency as a result of “he is simply recovering from some remedy for his most cancers.” Joe added: “Please say good day to the man that is standing in for tonight, Mr. John Zocco.”

The setlist for the León live performance was as follows:

01. Rock! Rock! (Until You Drop)
02. Rocket
03. Let’s Get Rocked
04. Foolin’
05. Armageddon It
06. Animal
07. Love Bites
08. Simply Like ’73
09. Let It Go
10. Die Exhausting The Hunter
11. Two Steps Behind
12. This Guitar
13. Bringin’ On The Heartbreak
14. Change 625
15. Rock Of Ages
16. {Photograph}

Encore:

17. Hysteria
18. Pour Some Sugar On Me

Encore 2:

19. Wasted

TRIXTER‘s Steve Brown subbed for Campbell at a number of exhibits in 2014 and 2015 whereas the DEF LEPPARD guitarist acquired remedy in his struggle in opposition to Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Brown’s first look with DEF LEPPARD occurred in September 2014 in the course of the pregame present for the primary of three NFL Worldwide Sequence outings.

Throughout a November 2023 look on the “Lymphoma Voices” podcast, Campbell provided an replace on his battle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, with which he was recognized in 2013. The now-62-year-old musician mentioned partly: “I am nonetheless coping with the lymphoma. It is kind of like — it is an American expression — whac-a-mole. You beat one thing again after which it pops up elsewhere. However it’s been a fairly constant battle, but it surely hasn’t been too troublesome for me. I take care of it nice. I have been in a position to dwell my life. I have been in a position to proceed touring. For the majority of these 10 years, I really was doing immunotherapy. Beginning in June of 2015, I began taking a drug referred to as pembrolizumab. I did that as a part of a medical trial. We mentioned just a few choices. And I would heard about this immunotherapy, and it was a really nascent remedy and I used to be actually pushing for doing it. I bear in mind on the time my medical doctors wished me to do radiation and possibly a mix of radiation and chemo. And I simply thought, ‘Nicely, let’s simply do that immunotherapy factor. Let’s examine if this works.’ So I managed to get on the trial. I am completely satisfied to say that it labored nicely for me. So from June of 2015 till basically the top of 2022, I used to be in a position to, nearly as soon as a month, go in and do an infusion of pembrolizumab and simply go about my life, and it was very, very straightforward for me to do. Actually, the toughest half was scheduling with all my journey. There have been very, very refined, very benign unintended effects. For me, I tolerated the remedy very, very nicely. And that was working nice. However it kind of misplaced its efficacy a 12 months, 12 months and a half in the past. And we might inform within the scans. I’d do scans each three to 4 months simply as a matter of protocol anyway to see what was taking place. And my oncologist now had been telling me for basically the final two years that the pembrolizumab was not being as efficient because it as soon as was and that we have been gonna have to contemplate completely different therapies. So anyway, in November of [2022], we did a mix of pembrolizumab with three chemo medicine. You need to forgive me ‘trigger I can not bear in mind the names of the chemo medicine. However anyway, so I did a course of remedy, six cycles of that mixture remedy of the three chemo medicine and the pembrolizumab. Sadly, it did not put me into remission; we fell a bit bit in need of that. So I only in the near past, on the finish of July [of 2023], began doing six cycles of a mix remedy of a chemo drug referred to as brentuximab and an immunotherapy drug referred to as nivolumab. I am midway by means of that. I’ve executed cycle three. I do cycle 4 early subsequent week. Thus far, so good. I needed to go and get this gorgeous haircut yesterday as a result of the brentuximab does have hair loss as a aspect impact. So I might begin telling within the final couple of weeks, each time I touched my hair, it was popping out. So, I am a bit bit extra proactive by going and reducing it tremendous, tremendous quick.”

Requested if he has gotten used to his a lot shorter haircut, Vivian mentioned: “10 years in the past, after I first began doing the ABVD chemo, that is when my hair first fell out. And in order that was troublesome. It was largely troublesome for me as a result of I would had lengthy hair my whole grownup life. I actually began rising my hair lengthy after I was about 11 or 12 years outdated, and it is simply gotten longer and longer. And it turns into a part of your identification when it is round for therefore lengthy, particularly as a guitar participant. And to be sincere, it was a comforting factor to me as a result of it gave me one thing to cover behind after I was on stage. I’m naturally a really shy individual and I establish with being a musician. I do not establish very a lot with being a performer, although, if I am being sincere with myself, that is actually sort of what we do in DEF LEPPARD. Yeah, we’re musicians and we’re songwriters, we write songs and we make information and we report music, however once we go on tour, we’re performers, and that is a part of it. And my hair gave me one thing to cover behind. It was an enormous a part of my identification for a lot of my life. So it was troublesome letting go of it the primary time once more.’

He continued: “I used to be residing in L.A. on the time, and I went to a theatrical wig maker after they first informed me my hair was gonna fall out. They took footage and measurements of my hair earlier than it fell out. And so they made a really, very sensible wig for me. It was very costly and it was very sensible. And I might have transitioned to that, and folks may not have seen — aside from the burden loss. I imply, I positively was dropping a number of weight, so I used to be a bit extra gaunt wanting. However the wig factor simply did not really feel proper to me. And I do know that it is completely different for everybody else. I actually wore that wig, I believe, for about 12 or 13 minutes driving residence after visiting the wig man and getting fitted for this. And I pulled over. My spouse was with me and. And I simply took it off my head and I by no means put it again on since. And I made a decision to only go public about my most cancers analysis’

Campbell added: “I used to be in a position to communicate on to DEF LEPPARD followers through social media and kind of inform them, ‘Nicely, that is what is going on on with me. I’ve had this most cancers analysis. And my hair is gonna fall out. So that you’re gonna see me on tour. I am not gonna have a lot hair. Do not be too shocked.’ In order that’s kind of helped that I used to be in a position to put it out to anybody who cared or was earlier than really simply happening stage as bald as a cue ball. And, and it did get to that stage, that my hair utterly fell; I did not even have eyebrows. However in a manner I discovered the entire course of considerably cathartic, as a result of I did not have this mane of hair to cover behind. I had nothing to supply on stage however my abilities as a musician, as a guitarist, as a singer, as a songwriter. And in a manner, it was considerably liberating for me. And I spotted that it is most likely simpler for me than for lots of different folks, as a result of at the moment I used to be already in my early fifties. I do not assume I’d have dealt with that as nicely if I had gotten this most cancers after I was 20 years outdated, versus 50 years outdated, so I had a distinct mindset about it.

“So it is a really private factor, “Vivian mentioned. “However for me, I attempted to look on the constructive aspect of it. I did not see any disgrace in it. There isn’t any disgrace in having most cancers. There isn’t any disgrace in going by means of remedy and sporting the consequences of your remedy bodily, and even being in a really public place as I used to be, happening tour with DEF LEPPARD and enjoying in entrance of tens of hundreds of individuals. Like I say, there was there was one thing sort of actually liberating about it. It isn’t my first selection, however you sort of go together with it and also you personal it and also you make the very best of it. And for me as a musician, like I mentioned, there was one thing that simply allowed me to go on stage and simply concentrate on the essence of who I’m as a musician and as an individual and to only put all of it on the market.”

Campbell — who earlier than becoming a member of DEF LEPPARD in 1992 was well-known for his work with DIO and WHITESNAKE — went public together with his Hodgkin’s lymphoma analysis in June 2013.

Vivian underwent three separate spells of chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant, just for his Hodgkin’s lymphoma to return.

Six years in the past, Campbell underwent backbone surgical procedure.

Vivian and his DEF LEPPARD bandmates have been lastly inducted into the Rock And Roll Corridor Of Fame in March 2019 — 14 years after the British rockers first grew to become eligible.

DEF LEPPARD‘s newest album, “Diamond Star Halos”, arrived in Might 2022 through UMe.