In the late 1980s and early 1990s, while I was growing up in Tacoma, Wash., there was no Internet. Instead, our days revolved around MTV.

My mom didn’t have cable, so I walked to either my friend Chante’s house in another part of my apartment complex or the seven blocks to Libbe Jones’s house, across the street from our elementary school, where we spent a lot of time hanging out in third, fourth and fifth grades.

Music videos made up about 75 percent of my middle-school life. Those coming-of-age years included so many crushes developed on musical artists featured by MTV: Prince; Michael Hutchence (INXS); Sting; Robert Smith … both of those guys in Wham. …

We would buy magazines that had glossy photo spreads of our favorite artists — or, if we had some extra allowance money, posters from the music store — and hang them on our walls and ceilings. And we would buy cassette singles, if we couldn’t afford to buy the whole tape.

Some of my earliest memories are of watching MTV at our babysitter’s house. Dire Straits’s cartoony “Money for Nothing,” Madonna’s super racy “Like a Prayer” and Michael Jackson’s scary to watch some parts “Thriller” were in heavy rotation from what I can remember.

I grew up with INXS flipping through those signs in “Need You Tonight,” and The Cure all stuffed in a closet playing tiny instruments in “Close to Me.” Glam-rock bands like Poison, Motley Crue and Kiss made a big impression, too.

Thinking back, I have a vivid memory of the first time I saw Def Leppard’s music video for “Pour Some Sugar on Me.” I was 12 years old at my aunt Linda’s house, left alone for part of the time and watching cable TV all day. Over that day, the video came on four or five times — and any time I heard the first words (“Step inside…”), I ran in front of the TV, no matter where in the house I was.

I would just stand there, watching these less makeupy, less gimmicky young lads playing their hearts out, making big noise and having fun on a round stage in the middle of an arena. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why, but the music video and that song had a deep effect on me.

DEF LEPPARD and “Pour Some Sugar on Me” stood out from the other videos on heavy rotation in those days. The musicians were less glammy than the other rock bands, so they seemed more “real.” Their lyrics were more sing-songy, easier for my pre-teen self to memorize. As a youngster in my school band I would play along on my drum practice pad and pretend it was Rick Allen’s extensive customized drum kit.

While I would love to tell you it was their music that spoke to me, it was definitely more about their good looks. I was 12!

They had so much energy in their performance. Rock stars.

It changed my world.

I became a superfan, saving money my grandpa would slide me to buy their book. Saving every article (and there were a lot) and making my own Def Leppard Only!! magazine-books of all the articles and interviews in Hit Parader, Circus, Smash Hits, Heavy Metal Heroes, and even softer mags like Tiger Beat.

It wasn’t really a stretch. All my friends loved Def Leppard as much as I did.

The way Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott and the other band members commanded that round stage was just magic. And all the while Rick Allen sat at his custom drum set, which turned slowly like the Top of Waikiki restaurant.

Who would have ever believed that my most favorite band in the world would come through Tacoma — in 1988, on the Hysteria tour?

Thanks to my mom’s 6’6” husband agreeing to take my sister and I to the show, and lifting us up above the crowd when necessary, we got to see one of the greatest rock bands of our generation rock it on that same round stage I’d eyed so many times in the video. By then, we both knew almost all of the words to every song and screamed them back to the band.

This weekend, 30 years later, I get to relive that night. I’m still a superfan. I joined the Rock Brigade fan club, just so I could get a meet and greet.

Thirty years. I’ll try not to scream when I meet them.