Article Disclaimer: This has turned into a very special episode of Rocksnobs, meaning it is a two-parter. Also, there is more swearing than usual. Ready? Steady. Go!
I don't know if I have ever made this clear, but I do enjoy the music of Mötley Crüe. I don't love them unconditionally or anything, although it is safe to say I probably like over fifty percent of their stuff. That might even be a lowball estimate. Anyway, I have picked on them and their tour plans and their overall stupidity quite a bit, but I do like their music.
So even though I vowed to not attend the Mötley Crüe concert, I attended the Mötley Crüe concert. More than anything, the show cemented my opinions of the individual band members. Mick Mars is still likable, I am still warming up to the new and improved Vince Neil, I still believe that Tommy Lee is a great drummer but dumb as a stump (no offense meant to stumps), and Nikki Sixx is a jackass.
In spite of those mixed opinions, off I went with Jeff J. to see Mötley Crüe. We tried to get there late to avoid the opening act, which is a movie. CEB told me that they are using a movie as a cost-cutting measure. With a movie opening, they don't have to pay an actual living band. I asked the girl next to me if we had missed the movie. We had not. Dang. Then I asked the girl next to me about her Mötley Crüe foam finger.
Oh, you heard me. Her Mötley Crüe foam finger. It wasn't actually a foam finger, it was a foam hand shaped in the metal horns gesture. Apparently it was the cheapest souvenir, coming in at ten dollars. Ten dollars for a Mötley Crüe foam hand. Two people in my row had them so I could enjoy them without having to buy one. (Not that I would have bought one anyway. Probably.)
So the movie started and it was claymation. The cheap bastards didn't want to pay actors either! It was a cute ("cute") little story about a meteor or something headed for Earth, so Mötley Crüe is going to go on a one day farewell tour. Yeah, the claymation figures were clay Mötley Crüe and I think they were voiced by non-clay Mötley Crüe. It was dumb. Then the lights went down and the spotlight hit the box in front of the circus tent and the place suddenly smelled like Otto's jacket.
Once the house lights were off every person in the place lit up some weed. I couldn't smoke my tobacco cigarettes in there so I had toted some nicotine gum. Isn't there some sort of weed gum for the Ottos of the world? That would have improved the odor in the arena. CEB was in my line of sight and I asked him if he thought the place reeked, he said occasionally. I must have been in an extra smelly section.
Anyway, back to the circus tent. I had read a review of the Madison Square Garden show that described the staging as a cross between Cirque du Soleil and A Clockwork Orange. The first batch of costumes on the supporting players proved that to be accurate. A midget dressed as a clown came out and then a couple of their dancers popped out of the box on the stage.
Now, when I say dancers in conjunction with Mötley Crüe you might be picturing the dancers from the Girls, Girls, Girls video. A fair guess, but since this is a circus theme they have girls who are either acrobats or aerial ballerinas. I'm not sure what they do in real life but they were obviously trained in the circus arts. Unfortunately, since they are working for Mötley Crüe they were dressed in outfits that Mötley Crüe would consider sexy. They looked like Clockwork Orangey harlequins. Or something. There was a harlequin pattern involved.
The midget did, and this is taken directly from my notes, some ringmaster shit. I started getting impatient like Krusty the Klown. "What is the freaking holdup?" I asked Jeff J. that question and added, "Is Vince having trouble getting into his girdle?"
Jeff J.: He's got to cinch!
Me: Yes! Right now Nikki has his foot on Vince's back and he's pulling the corset strings tight. Just one big platform boot planted on Vince.
Finally the curtain went up, much pyro went off, and Mötley Crüe arrived.
Shout At The Devil
Vince didn't let me down, right out of the gate he was singing every other word. From my angle I could see the security guard stationed over Tommy's left shoulder and he was having a really good time. Me, not so much. There was so much pyro that the waves of heat were making me uncomfortable.
Tommy appeared to be wearing Insane Clown Posse makeup and a tie with no shirt. Well, it wasn't true ICP makeup but he did have his face covered in clown white. After his drumming ability, his face is his best asset (in my opinion, if you want to side with his area go ahead) and he was covering it up.
In other makeup news, it looked like Vince had used eyebrow pencil.
Too Fast For Love
Nikki was wearing an outfit that was tattered strategically. At first I thought he had suffered a horrible cheese grater incident (possibly while making nachos), then I realized it looked more like he had fallen off his ten speed bike. Mick wasn't moving much but his posture was good. He was standing up straight and I was relieved. He's got that back pain from his degenerative disease plus he has a new hip, but he seemed to be doing okay.
During Too Fast For Love I saw Nikki and Vince give each other a fist pound, and I took note of that because it was the first instance of forced camaraderie. I was wondering how they would treat each other onstage since they don't seem to like each other, and seeing Nikki and Vince act all pal-sy wal-sy was deeply amusing.
Ten Seconds To Love
I didn't expect to hear that one! Jeff J. and I exchanged big beamy smiles because we had heard that the first six songs covered the first two albums and that was that. It seemed to me if they were playing Ten Seconds To Love then maybe the first two albums were a bigger factor in the set list. I didn't think that song was an obvious choice, but I'm not the last word on set lists. If I was, Iron Maiden would play Band On The Run.
This is when I noticed Mick's huge platform shoes and started wondering if they were orthopedic. I imagined them as having about three inches of cushy padding to help Mick's back, I can only hope that is true. Meanwhile, Vince was struggling to hit the higher notes. If it's okay when that happens to Robin Zander, I can't really pick on Vince now, can I? Of course Zander can hit the notes, it just looks like it hurts him. Bruce Dickinson can hit his notes with ease. However, both of those guys haven't been as hard on their bodies as Vince, so I'm still cutting him some slack.
"All you lazy motherfuckers get your fuckin' hands up."
I don't recall who said that, I think it was Nikki. I did not put my hands up. Call me lazy, motherfucker. I'm working too. Ass.
After the song, again going by the notes, Nikki said stupid shit. Heh. I have no idea what that could be. The next entry states he was throwing his arms out at his sides, demanding applause. I bet the stupid shit was along the lines of, "Woo! We're back! Rock!" Ass.
Red Hot
I had another gust of illegally scented wind float in my direction and I noted it as an Otto Blast. I was super pissed because I had just washed that pair of jeans and how was I supposed to wear them on casual Friday if they reeked like Otto at a Mötley Crüe show? Sure, the show was on a Monday but I didn't think the aroma would leave by Friday. Don't be telling me to just wash the jeans, I like being mad at Mötley Crüe.
The next item says: Pyro! Blinded! I think that time it was flash pots, but I was seeing severe spots and the next song's scrawls are extra slanty. I couldn't see that well.
On With The Show
Directly from the notebook:
Sing along!
Budweiser
Sing along!
Otto!
Sing along!
Translated: Vince kept holding the microphone over the crowd. When he meandered back to the drums during the guitar solo he was drinking a beer, and someone in the row behind me was firing it up. Anyway, at some point in the song I noticed that Nikki's shirt said Fuck Off. The feeling is mutual, dear.
There must have been some midget (as clown, I think) interlude because someone behind me hollered, "Bring on the strippers!" They are circus professionals, jackass!
Looks That Kill
From the notes: What's today? The 14th? I need to mail my car insurance.
I don't know, the energy just wasn't there for that song and they were starting to lose me. Fortunately Nikki and Vince shared a microphone during some more camaraderie and that got me back. After the song Tommy must have said something because the notes claim he is a numbskull. I bet it was another version of, "Woo! We're back! Rock!"
Louder Than Hell
Pyro heat? Pyro hurl? What? I was having more pyro-induced vision problems. Oh, it says blinding and hot pyro on the next page. I was way further away from the Mötley Crüe pyro than the Guns N' Roses pyro and it was many times warmer.
From the notes: I'd heard they did Cirque du Soleil shit-I don't like the original.
Yep, I beg to differ with Gary Lewis and the Playboys because I don't believe that everybody loves a clown. I don't like circus clowns, and I don't like cirque clowns either. In this instance I'm guessing the acrobats were doing their acrobatics. Every now and then a large metal circle would drop from the rigging and, you know, there would be two acrobats doing acrobatics on it. Not my deal, but they do good work.
Live Wire
Strobes. I saw Tommy miss a stick that he had tossed into the air, but so what. When you toss your sticks several feet in the air you're going to miss some now and then. He grabbed a fresh one and grinned offstage at someone, I would assume his drum tech. I enjoyed his good natured attitude and the fact that he hits hard. I'm not the last word on drummers either, but I think Tommy Lee is terrific and one of the main reasons is because he isn't timid.
Otto Blast.
From the notes: 1st cowbell.
Me: Satisfying!
Jeff J.: (Nods.)
The best part of Live Wire is the cowbell and I think we can all probably agree on that.
From the notes: Sneeze! CEB!
I think that means I saw CEB sneeze.
They added a long break in the middle of Live Wire, I think Nikki may have been playing a bass line and Tommy stood up and lowered his hands to get us to quiet down, then threw his hands in the air to make us cheer. Bruce Dickinson does it better in Live After Death, Tommy! I was miffed because the break in the song came before the second cowbell.
I assumed that Tommy quieted us down so we could enjoy the cowbell at maximum efficiency, I didn't expect a cheap play for applause. Oh, well. We eventually got our cowbell and the guy in front of me was really excited about it. I can't really blame him.
Curtain drop.
That makes seven songs from the first two albums plus one from Theatre Of Pain, and a weirdly timed intermission. It seemed a little early because I knew they played for two and a half hours. The clown said they would be back in ten minutes and they threw another little movie clip up. The clip ended with the text In Space, No One Can Hear You Fart. Dude, even Beavis and Butthead would look at that and say, "too sophomoric." If they knew the word sophomoric.
To be continued...