September 11, 2000. Tingley Coliseum, Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was finally seeing a childhood favorite of mine, Def Leppard, live in concert. So where was that smell coming from?
It was coming from the floor. And the smell was horse shit. You see, Tingley Coliseum is a rodeo and horse show stadium that sometimes books live acts. And from what I was able to piece together as I walked into that Def Leppard show 20 years ago, there’d been either a rodeo or a horse show the day before the concert and no one had bothered to clean up completely. Yee-haw!
I spent almost three years on the radio in Albuquerque and I saw some pretty amazing shows during my time there. But this was the only show where I had to dodge horse piles to find a good spot on the floor. I’m thankful I haven’t had that problem at any show since, and I’m thankful that some live footage from that era exists. Check out this clip from just a week earlier in Sacramento. The Albuquerque setlist is here.