Arena rock or stadium rock as it was also known was to play huge crowds in huge venues and have the loudest bands. It began in the 70’s when bands such as Queen, Led Zeppelin, Foreigner and Boston were playing to sell out crowds in the biggest arenas available.
It was also in the 80’s that crowds saw bands and artists playing at even larger venues and to even bigger crowds. Arena rock saw the commercialism of rock and roll and wowed audiences all over the world.
Other Arena rock bands and artists were Skid row, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, Def Leppard, Twisted Sister and many others. They were typified by streamlining the sound of rock music with almost mainstream popularity.
Power ballads mixed with rock and roll sounds were the forefront of the arena rock motion and gave us nearly a whole decade’s worth of love songs that were not your typical mushy sounds. They mixed in love lyrics with heavy beats, loud guitar riffs, banging drums and electric keyboards or pianos.
Other songs that made the arena rock popular were titles such as Eye of the tiger, caught up in you and Open arms.
Heavy metal was still trying to ignore the popularity of arena rock and wanted to be kept under separate categories. Def Leppard was a hard rock band that made the transition from hard rock to popular arena rock perfectly. They soon became mainstream and had some very popular hits.
Tags: arena rock, Boston, electric keyboards, Foreigner, guitar riffs, hard rock band, led zeppelin, power ballads, Queen, rock bands, stadium rock