The Best Drummer in the World

I’ve a live recording of Def Leppard’s “Bringing on the Heartbreak” – one of my favorite tracks – after the song vocalist Joe Elliot, says …
“Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting the best drummer in the world – Rick Allen”

And, I second him on that.

I am not being a critic. It would be a tough for anyone to choose the greatest out of the so many great stickmen. There is a huge lineup of iconic drummers from the wild hell raiser Keith Moon of The Who, who could smash drums as well as hotel rooms, to the super fast masked fellow – Joey Jordison of Slipknot. There are double bass heroes like Dave Lumbardo of Slayer and Tommy Aldridge who has played with several biggies – Ozzy, Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy…
Of course we can’t forget Dave Grohl for being the spine of Nirvana’s angst and also the once Tennis aspirant – Lars Ulrich of Metallica. There have been drummers with their roots in Jazz, like Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. There is Jimmy Chamberlin of the Smashing Pumpkins; Danny Carey of the enigmatic Tool…the list is endless. And, somewhere near the top end of this list there is the irreplaceable John Bonham and Led Zeppelin has reaffirmed that several times.

But still Rick Allen is one man who perhaps is the most popular and loved – not only because of the stuff that he plays but mostly because of the stuff he is made up of – sheer will power. He continues to bang single armedly.

In 1984 he lost his left arm in a car accident caused by road rage and in 1986 he was back on the stage with Def Leppard – managing a modified drumkit with one arm; soon after the band released their most successful album till date – Hysteria. And that’s what makes Rick Allen super special and the best drummer in the world.

However Rick’s massive example of self belief wasn’t inspiring enough for his band mate Steve Clark who lost his life to alcohol. We envy the rockstars for their rockstar status and yet so many of them die under the pressure of being one. Still we all just wanna be big rockstars as Nickelback sang.

But we shall talk of Nickelback and others later. This one is to Def Leppard – one of my favorite bands, going up as the first post under ‘music’ category on my blog.

By the way, the Leps are soon going to be touring with Poison.