A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

"It's called rocking out! - Pt. 2

Now then, the concert itself. If I had to limit myself to a one word review, that word would be "appalling."

Okay, so there was some good to be had: namely Mick Mars. The guys is 740 years old and suffering from ankylosing spondylitis, which has rendered him unable to turn his head or stand up straight (he's also shrunk from 5' 9" to 5' 3"), but the guy can still shred. If there was anything to recommend the first 3/4 of the set, it was hearing him play, whether he was rooted to his spot stage right or lurching to the front to solo.

As for everything else...let me just say that I saw Mötley Crüe in 1987 with Tim and a couple other guys. They were big back then. I mean, like, Def Leppard big (holla atcha boy, Plantersville!). Whitesnake opened, and both Heather Locklear and pre-high heel assault Tawny Kitaen were in attendance. The band themselves were also assisted on stage by the Nasty Habits, two leather-clad "backup singers" that provided eye candy to our side of the stage. Last week's show, on the other hand, reminded me of seeing KISS in 1989, when the lights in the first giant 'S' went out and they were openly heckled by those in attendance.

And I can't speak for Tim and the others, but I'm nowhere near as svelte or energetic as I was 21 years ago, and that's without the heroin snorting. The Crüe, on the other hand, are definitely the worse for two decades of wear. Vince Neil is a pudgy mosaic of bad plastic surgery, incipient hair loss, and poor lifestyle choices, Tommy Lee still talks like a stoned fratboy and is starting to resemble Jamie Farr in his old age, and all the Road Warrior fashion in the world isn't going to hide the gut on Nikki Sixx. I guess Kat Von D loves him for his mind.

What happened to Marshall stacks?

Even so, the fact that non-Mars members of the band are pushing 50 shouldn't excuse a poor performance, and I might have been more forgiving had I not seen two shows already this year featuring quinquagenarians that both vaulted into my top 10 all-time concert experiences. I was due for a letdown, and - at least in that regard - the Crüe didn't disappoint.

Right off the bat you knew there was going to be trouble. "Kickstart My Heart" was the opening song, and Neil was either unwilling or unable to sing half the words, holding his microphone out for the audience as if he paid $75 a pop to hear us sing. "Wild Side" and "Shout at the Devil" were done in similar lazy fashion, which made the microphone failure during "Don't Go Away Mad" (played about halfway through the show) that much more amusing.

"Saints of Los Angeles," from their latest album of the same name, was up next. The stage, poorly rendered here, was apparently meant to evoke a rooftop in the City of Angels. Was it the post-apocalyptic rape fantasy L.A. of "Looks That Kill?" Or perhaps the incomprehensible Chinatown of "Too Young to Fall in Love?" We may never know:

"Live Wire" followed, and I noted with no small amount of amusement that Tommy Lee's drum solo, for lack of a better phrase, hasn't improved one iota from the thrice tapped cowbell of the album version. We were also spared the fifteen minute spectacle of the elevated, upside down drum kit. I honestly think they killed that part of the set to keep Mick from spending more time on stage than absolutely necessary. I swear, at one point during Tommy's "titty cam" shenanigans (I dearly wish I was joking), Mick looked in my general direction, craned his aching skull skyward, and beseeched someone, anyone, to put him out of his misery.

Thus began a series of songs I honestly couldn't care less about: "Motherfucker of the Year," the aforementioned "Don't Go Away Mad," "Same Ol' Situation," and Primal Scream." It was around this time RTVW and I discovered the Toyota Center stopped serving alcohol at 9:30. Thus thwarted, we turned out attention to the video show accompanying the concert. Always ones for subtlety, the band entertained us with barely edited porn cut with concentration camp footage. And just so we were sure of where they (Sixx) got the idea, there were also plenty of shots of Malcolm McDowell with the eye clamps. The repeated shots of Bush giving the finger (during "Motherfucker") were a nice touch, however.

The final songs, unsurprisingly, provided the show's high points. "Looks that Kill and "Dr. Feelgood" were actually quite tight, "LTK" was especially rocking, but that's probably just because, like incontinent marathoners, they were in a hurry to finish up. And of course, no Crüe show would be complete without their sole encore, "Home Sweet Home:"

The song's annoyance factor is trebled not just by its popularity as an insufferable power ballad, but also because that dude at drum major camp in 1986 totally got all the hot ass because he could play the piano part (and yes, there was plenty of hot ass at drum major camp).

So, 13 songs. Not a lot to show for, what...nine studio albums? And nothing from the John Corabi era? Ah well, I was bound to have some missteps during my year of concert glory. Next up, the Drive-By Truckers in September.