During their tour to promote their 2022 album Diamond Star Halos, Def Leppard played two concerts in their native Sheffield, England. May 19, 2023 saw them in the 900-capacity Leadmill, a much smaller venue than the places they normally play. May 23, 2023 took Def Lep in the opposite direction, as they went to the Bramhall Lane football stadium to perform in front of more than 40,000 punters. This show becomes the focus of Diamond Star Heroes Live From Sheffield.

When we look at the 17-song setlist, 2022’s Halos boasts “Kick”, “Take What You Want”, and “This Guitar”. 1999’s Euphoria provides “Promises”.

1995’s best of brings us its bonus track “When Love & Hate Collide”. 1992’s Adrenalize boasts “Let’s Get Rocked”.

1987’s Hysteria provides its title track, “Pour Some Sugar on Me”, “Animal”, “Armageddon It”, “Love Bites” and “Rocket”. From 1983’s Pyromania, we discover “Foolin’”, “Rock of Ages” and “Photograph”.

1981’s High ‘n’ Dry features “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak” and “Switch 625”.

On the positive side, Heroes offers a lot of setlist changes compared to Leadmill. We only find five songs shared between the two: “Kick”, “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak”, “Switch 625”, “Hysteria” and “Pour Some Sugar on Me”.

Of course, I’d prefer zero repeated tunes between the two, especially since Leadmill went with a fairly brief 13-track agenda. That means nearly half of its songs pop up here as well.

Still, 23 different tunes across the two shows still seems satisfactory. I appreciate that Heroes doesn’t just provide the Leadmill set plus a few more.

Casual fans seem likely to prefer the roster of tunes found with Heroes, as it packs in more of Def Lep’s hits. The band had 11 top 20 singles in the US, and nine of them appear here, as the show loses only 1992’s “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad" and 1993’s “Two Steps Behind”.

Why skip that pair? I think because Def Lep knew that chart success in the 90s didn’t necessarily mean continued popularity 30 years later.

Let’s face it: most of Def Lep’s legacy relies on Pyromania and Hysteria. If you weren’t of rockin’ age in the 1980s, I don’t think you can comprehend just how successful those albums were.

Actually, even for those of us who did rawk in the 1980s, Def Lep sort of went under the radar. This seems bizarre given Pyromania sold 10 million in the US and Hysteria moved 12 million units.

Only three artists released two different studio albums in the 1980s that qualified for that 10-million-plus “Diamond” certification. That list includes Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and – you guessed it – Def Leppard.

MJ and Whitney got tons of headlines, but plenty of other rock bands overshadowed Def Lep in the press and publicity domains. Groups like the Police, U2 and Guns ‘n Roses received considerably more attention than the “meat and potatoes” rockers Def Lep.

As noted in my Leadmill review, I felt those other acts deserved more focus simply because they were better. While I never disliked Def Lep, they didn’t do it for me and they still don’t.

Decades later, Leadmill didn’t change my mind, and Heroes doesn’t either. That said, I don’t mind Def Lep and Heroes becomes a pretty good representation of their material.

As I noted when I reviewed it, they seemed a bit awkward in the tight confines of the 900-capacity Leadmill with its dinky stage. The enormous stadium setting of Heroes grants the band more breathing room.

This results in a more dynamic performance. I can’t claim Heroes convinces me that Def Lep provide great live shows, but it makes a more convincing argument than Leadmill did.

Just like with Leadmill, director Jim Parsons avoids the temptation to “spice up” the proceedings. Parsons gives Heroes an enjoyably basic feel, one in which he eschews quick-cutting or gimmicks and keeps crowd shots to a reasonable level.

All of this leads to a fairly enjoyable concert presentation, one that even non-fans such of myself can like. While Heroes didn’t make me want to rush out and buy all of Def Leppard’s albums, I thought it provided a solid stadium rock show.

Def Leppard: Diamond Star Heroes Live from Sheffield appears in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. Though my player indicated Heroes came only with 1080p visuals, the end result nonetheless looked terrific.

Sharpness always seemed great. Nary a sliver of softness crept into this tight presentation.

Neither jagged edges nor shimmering popped up, and I saw no edge haloes. Source flaws also failed to manifest.

Like most rock shows, the biggest variety of colors stemmed from stage lighting, as the bandmembers tended to prefer darker clothes. Still, I saw some variety in their garb, such as singer Joe Elliott’s velvet jacket or guitarist Vivian Campbell’s turquoise shirt. Even without HDR, the hues seemed vivid and dynamic.

Blacks came across as deep and rich, while low-light shots displayed appealing clarity. Honestly, this became a shockingly good image given its lack of 4K resolution and HDR.

Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD, I felt largely pleased with the show’s Dolby Atmos audio, though it leaned a little gimmicky at times. Though much of the material came from the front, the rear speakers played an unnaturally large role.

This mainly meant backing vocals from the surround channels as well as occasional instances of instrumentation. Though not a terrible decision, it took away from the “you are there” concert soundscape I prefer, especially since the isolation of support vocals made it more obvious that they came from recordings and not actual live singing.

Otherwise, the mix succeeded. Joe Elliott’s vocals stayed nicely centered and the instruments created a good stereo image around him. These elements seemed appropriately placed and melded together well to form a nice impression of a live performance.

Audio quality seemed good. Vocals occasionally suffered from a little too much reverb, but they remained largely well-rendered.

Instruments came across as accurate and portrayed the appropriate sounds. Guitars buzzed and jangled, while drums punched across well.

Bass response provided reasonable depth. Overall this became a satisfying take on the material, even if I wish it felt more natural.

Note that the disc also provided DTS-HD MA 5.1 and LPCM stereo mixes. In terms of soundscape, the 5.l version largely resembled what I heard from the Atmos, and it brought similar audio quality as well.

For a concert presentation that seemed most “normal”, the stereo became the way to go. Obviously it lost the surround usage so it created a good front-oriented perspective.

Previously available on Blu-ray, the 4K UHD includes One Night Only: Live at the Leadmill. It goes for one hour, five minutes, 58 seconds.

Because I already reviewed Leadmill on its own, I won’t regurgitate that discussion. For my full look at the show, please click here.

I will say that although I suspect Leadmill would’ve been the more exciting show to attend in person due to the small club’s intimacy, Heroes fares better as a home video presentation. Def Lep just didn’t seem to know what to do with themselves in the club setting but they appear more at home in a stadium and put on a better show.

Although this marked Leadmill’s UHD debut, it played back as 1080p. Granted, so did Heroes and it looked great.

However, I didn’t think Leadmill benefited from the UHD treatment. It looked and sounded an awful lot like the Blu-ray version linked above.

As such, its inclusion will appeal solely to fans who didn’t already buy the Leadmill Blu-ray. It’s nice to have both shows on one disc, but I didn’t see the UHD Leadmill as an upgrade.

In their hometown and comfortable in a massive venue, Diamond Star Heroes Live From Sheffield gives us a pretty solid stadium concert from Def Leppard. We hear most of the band’s hits and the show gives us a good look at what made them so popular. The 4K UHD boasts excellent visuals as well as good audio and a bonus concert. I felt pleased with this quality 4K UHD.