“Too big for our boots? We were a bunch of kids destined for factory life. We were not going to screw this up”: The tempestuous story of Def Leppard’s High ’N’ Dry, the album that turned them into US stars

Def Leppard posing for a photograph in 1982.

Sunday, August 24, 1980: the final night of Reading festival. Second-on-the-bill to headliners Whitesnake, this should be the crowning glory of what has been a momentous year for Def Leppard. Instead disaster awaits them. No longer the darlings of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, thanks to poisonous reviews of their debut album On Through The Night, and being lambasted for sounding ‘too American’ – a hanging offence in 1980 – Leppard have suddenly taken on the mantle of sell-outs, even traitors. At least to a particularly vociferous section of hard-core metal fans, that is.

Party Seven (seven-pint) beer kegs – some not empty – fly onto the stage as the band run about on it, doing their best to ignore them. Eggs are thrown at them. A huge grass sod flies up and hits guitarist Pete Willis square in the bollocks.