Surprise No. 1 is a pretty good new Def Leppard CD called "X." It's an album that earned a three-star review from a Rolling Stone critic, who wrote ". . . it will only be cosmic hair-metal justice if Def Leppard scores a comeback hit with this one."
Surprise No. 2 is drummer Rick Allen.
Almost two decades ago, Allen was involved in perhaps the most infamous non-fatal car crash in rock history.
He lost his left arm but not his job: Allen and his band mates worked together to construct a drum kit that requires the left foot to do the duties traditionally performed by the left hand.
At 39, Allen is still asking graying patrons to "Pour Some Sugar On Me," but he's a different man from the one who used to tell people he lost a limb in a shaving accident.
Allen has almost developed into the anti-Keith Moon, so entirely has he left behind his former excesses of recreation and ego.
One Fort Wayne organization devoted to helping people with disabilities stands to directly benefit from Allen's altered outlook when Def Leppard visits the Memorial Coliseum on Monday.
The emotional and physical recuperation that followed Allen's accident made him realize he was missing a lot more than an arm.
"I really started asking questions about spiritual issues after the accident," he said in a telephone interview. "It just dawned on me that there was a lot more to me than my drum solo in 'Rock of Ages.' "
These days, Allen uses Def Leppard to feed a substantive spiritual sideline called the Raven Drum Foundation.
The foundation is devoted to all the ways drumming may help people who are coping with physical and mental challenges.
In many of the cities where Def Leppard performs, Allen visits hospitals and rehab centers and hosts something called a drum circle.
The impetus for these visits was Allen's own experience of hospitals, which can best be described as miserable and worst be described as something unprintable.
"One day alone can feel like a month," he said. "You get too involved in your own (expletive). Bringing a crowd around helps get people out of their heads."
Drum circle is a concise term. It is basically a group of people sitting or standing in a circle playing drums and percussion instruments together.
But it is also a time-tested method for bringing people together, helping them connect to one another and making them stronger for that connection.
"Mine and your ancestors once sat around a fire together. They sat around a fire because they knew they had to stay together to survive. The drum is ancient. It was the first form of communication - people clapping their hands or picking up stick and hitting a log. It is an essential part of us."
A drum circle can help everyone who takes part, even the guy who initiates it.
"I think a lot of us have been in that situation where we want to be of service. But after we get there, we realize it's not just for the people who are there. It's for us as well."
There are no solos in the drum circle.
"It's not about who can drum better anybody else. There's not too much testosterone in the drum circle. I always say. 'If you can't hear the quietest drum in the circle, then you're playing too loud.' "
Allen and Def Leppard recently teamed up with the Dallas-based Bright Star Foundation so that the Raven Drum Foundation's goals could be pursued in the many places the band visits only briefly.
The Fort Wayne concert will be their first collaborative event.
The Bright Star Foundation was established in 1993 to help celebrities more effectively exercise their philanthropy.
Allen won't be able to do a drum circle in Fort Wayne, but Def Leppard-owned merchandise and other band-inspired goodies will be raffled off at the show, the proceeds to be divided among Raven Drum and the Turnstone Center For Disabled Children & Adults in Fort Wayne.
The list of acquirable philanthropic items may include drum heads and drum sticks used by Allen and drum lessons given by him; Phil Collen's guitar picks; tour bus rides, and backstage passes.
Allen and Bright Star founder Dawn Purtee, meanwhile, are encouraging Def Leppard fans to call Turnstone at 483-2100 and find out what the organization's most pressing material needs are. Everyday items like paper towels will be collected at the show.
Purtee said she was stunned to see how committed the band is to Allen's causes.
"They're so supportive," Purtee said of Def Leppard and friends. "Everyone from the top on down. From the tour manager to every band member to everyone in that organization. They're all completely supportive. They're all volunteers, collecting merchandise.
"And Rick's just a phenomenal human being."
Allen has touched many lives in his travels, but the more people he encounters who tell him what an inspiration he is, the less he sees himself in that light.
"People come up to me and say, 'I don't know what I would have done if it had been me.' And I say, 'I didn't know either.'
"They say, 'You seemed so brave.' And I say, 'No, I was barely hanging on to the reins.'
"On the whole, I'm just really kind of happy to be alive. I see so many able-bodied people complaining. The kind of people I meet are in much worse situations than me. So I don't complain."
Allen says he owes his life - and his renewed passion for living it - to his band mates.
They brought him into the fold when he was just 15 and they stood by him when the world thought it was a foregone conclusion that he would be sent packing.
"I think what was a surprise for all of us (after my accident) was discovering what we were really concerned about. We started out as friends and that is what came to the fore. That accident highlighted our friendship.
"We realized that our first concerns had always been about wanting everybody in the band to feel good and be healthy."
