spinoff

They’re not in bad shape the Crue, despite the fact they must all be pushing at least 40. Guitarist Mick Mars has had a few health problems and doesn’t move that easily, but aside from that it’s a clean bill of health from the Crue, which considering what they’ve subjected themselves to is nothing short of miraculous (for more information read the excellent ‘Motley Crue: The Dirt’. Not read it? Buy it now.)

A blast of noise, fireworks, lots of swearing, headbands, booming drums, and the boys were on stage. The sound is pure, unashamed poodle rock, and they rip through a set made up of old classics.

‘Girls Girls Girls’ – a monster pornographic stomp – raises the roof. But this is a Motley Crue concert, and overstatement is the only way they know… and so strippers are lowered from the ceiling on metal hoops. They gyrate above the stage as others prowl among the band and throw their clothes into the audience. By the end of the song there is dry ice, beer and underwear all over the place.

No sooner has it finished then we are into ‘Dr Feelgood’ though this time with a special synth introduction played by Nikki Sixx. One of the strippers comes back onto the stage. She bends over in front of the furiously head-banging Sixx, and starts shooting flames at him. Out of her arse. Sixx bangs his head even more and as he does so the synth starts bending backwards and forwards on its stand, at which point two massive jets of flame shoot up behind him, covering him in a shower of sparks.

The crowd goes wild.

And then two more jets of flame go off though this time from the front. The synth stand is bending all over the place, flames everywhere not least from the lady’s posterior, the crowd is going bananas and then finally WOOMPH! there is an enormous explosion and we are into the main body of the song.

At this point, your humble Spinoffite shed a tear – a tear of pure joy.

At the end of the song, a dwarf runs onto the stage dressed as the lead singer Vince Neil. He makes a bee line for the lady (whose fire by this time has been thankfully extinguished) and started humping her leg. From somewhere she produces a whip and chases the little scamp off stage, while wildly thrashing him on the backside.

Next it’s the turn of drummer Tommy Lee to take centre stage. “I just wanna take a moment you guys,” he says to the crowd. “No shhh please. Shhh.” The crowd is hushed. He kneels at the front of the stage.

“Oh God. I just would like to thank you for letting me be here to play fucking rock and roll to all these motherfuckers in London. Oh yeah. Amen.” At this Nikki Sixx pipes up, “hey dude – you can’t say ‘fuck’ in a prayer dude - what are you thinking?” there is a confused pause. And how does the Crue solve this moment of ecumenical difficulty? Why – by launching into a belting version of 'Anarchy in the UK', of course.

And then we have the ‘Titty-Cam’ (the function of which the readers can work out for themselves I’m sure) stilt walkers, the twenty foot-high evil head with glowing red eyes, more strippers, guitar smashing, fireworks synchronised to Tommy’s kick drum, an appearance by Nikki’s son, the announcement that the Crue are to record a new album, and the revelation that all of Nikki’s favourite bands are from London (“yeah dude: Elton John, Slade – all my favourite fucking bands man.” Oh well…)

The singing was getting to Vince by the end and he was huffing a bit, but the tracks still held together well – Nikki looked cool, Tommy hammered the hell out of his poor drums and Mick can still play at dizzying speeds. The sound is still there, and anyway the ‘punky glam metal with screaming over the top’ will always be a blast.

The point about Motley Crue and the thing that made seeing them so enjoyable was that they were completely and unashamedly un self-conscious. They seemed in a way, to be free. Whereas most modern bands seem to be locked in a struggle to sound as much like someone else as possible, the Crue are just boldly and, at times, stupidly, themselves.

In short, Motley Crude are a band with character. Lots of character. Seeing them live was a sharp reminder that this is exactly what most modern rock bands are missing.

Yours etc.,

Spinoff.