Motley Crue Review Chicago

Last night was the third show of Cruefest. I'll cut the band a little slack for that, but not very much. I've seen Motley Crue 136 times now and this was in the bottom five. Oddly enough, all of those were from the Feelgood tour. Since this was the 20th Anniversary of Feelgood, I shouldn't have been surprised.

The setlist was, as is becoming a habit on Cruefest, bad. They did the entire Feelgood album and since they were aware of this, they might have rehearsed a bit. There was also a last ditch attempt at saving the show by adding other hits on at the end. They were:
Wild Side
Saints Of Los Angeles
Shout At The Devil
Looks That Kill
Home Sweet Home
Girls Girls Girls

A lot of funny things happened at this show. Every single member of the band screwed up a song at least twice. The best of those being Looks That Kill. This is a song that they should know pretty well by now. In the course of 3:53, Vince forgot the words, various members sang when there was no one else singing, an "ummm" was clearly heard and there was the proper bass line playing while another, clearly off key bass line was completely audible. Although this may account for Nikki's amazing talent of continuously having both hands in the air while the bass is clearly heard. He does this a lot, but never as much as last night.

Nikki also spent a lot of time wandering around the stage, which is also nice. It was also nice to see him in an awesome pair of boots. It was the best though, to hear his little (less manipulative than last year, thank you so much) speech where he announced that they were rotating five songs throughout the tour, so far those have been Live Wire, Primal Scream and Looks That Kill. That's three. Since Nikki was talking about it last night, it was only technically 2 songs he had to remember, what they played the night before in Cleveland (Primal Scream) and what they were playing then (Looks That Kill). He forgot Primal Scream and had to ask the band what they had played the night before. There was a few seconds of mumbling until the band remembered what they had played, and then Nikki seemed to randomly pull Looks That Kill out of his ass. Nikki also had a weird part in Home Sweet Home, at the end where the band is oh so touchingly gathered around the piano, Nikki is completely at the other end of the stage, he started to walk over, waved at the band, stopped, threw something at them and turned and wandered back to his side of the stage. It was really odd.

Tommy was still passing around that damn bottle of Jager. No, I still don't want it. He was also stuck behind the smallest drum kit I've ever seen him play. It was really sad, like they were stripping him of his power or something. The once mighty Tommy Lee looked very small and defeated. I guess he heard the show. He had a few moments in the sun, but not many, and he also screwed up as many songs as he got right.

In a sentence that I thought would never ever come out of my brain, the best member of the night was Vince. He tore up Shout At The Devil. Best version I've heard since the Theater Of Pain tour. He wasn't perfect by a long shot though. He forgot more words than ever before and only rarely bothered to use the audience to cover that up. We know the words, let us take it, we can do it. His stage patter was predictable and dated, as always. But he still won, for the first time ever, best Crue member of the night.

Mick was moving around slightly less than last year, but still seemed in pretty good health. His screw ups were audible and frequent, according to my guitar guy show mate. I didn't notice, mostly because of Nikki's screw ups. What I did notice was a pattern of starting songs early and then stopping and shortening solos in the songs. Maybe that's what screwed Vince up so bad.

The stage set was cool, I think. They didn't bother to have the video screens on for much of the show. When they were on they showed reasonably cheap and crappy clip art type stuff. There was no Tit E. Cam either. We originally had lawn seats and traded up when we got there. That was a beautiful thing because we wouldn't have been able to see anything from the lawn. Isn't that why they have those huge screens up there?

To sum it up, the band was bad. They should have never have attempted to do the entire Feelgood album, that album was hugely filler stuffed. The set might have been great if people in the back could have seen it. They needed the video screens on and showing the band. The entire band needs to relearn Looks That Kill and Home Sweet Home. HSH wins for worst song of the night. At one point they were all playing different versions of it at the same time. This time around they needed to actually practice and remember the people who paid to see them. I was amazingly disappointed. I now understand why Nikki has been so adamant about not wanting show infomation put out on the internet. He's starting to become a bit rusty as my hero.

Will I see them again? Yeah. I've seen worse shows from them. But I'll wait until this Feelgood silliness is done. Should you see them? I'd read reviews from later in the tour, maybe they'll improve.

Needles And Pins

There's a PSA that has a man standing outside a convenience store talking about how he can't be blamed for children being on drugs anymore because all the drugs the kids need are inside their parent's medicine cabinets. There's a definite trend these days toward prescription drugs, and two very public figures screwed up their life in very public ways by using them.

The first is, of course, Michael Jackson. Since he died from them, his story takes priority over the other one. It's coming out now that he was using a drug that most of us couldn't and wouldn't want to get our hands on. He did have problems with other prescription drugs though. Since no one, especially celebrities, wants to be seen on a corner buying street drugs, it shouldn't be surprising that scripts are so common. It's made worse, of course, by the fact that he was injecting them. It's a lot harder to control the dosage when a) you're shooting them and b) you're having someone else do it. It's much more dangerous and the addiction moves faster. I'm guessing that Michael wanted to see his kids grow up and it's sad that his story ends here.

The second is Manny Ramirez. He didn't die, but his Hall Of Fame career did. Sure, he'll keep most of his fans (myself included), but he won't be entering the HOF if history proves true.

These two men had overwhelming amounts of natural talent and in Manny's case needed nothing to bolster anything he didn't already possess. Michael had a well known history of script abuse and no one did anything about it except give him more. I'm wondering of the whys of celebrity. Yes, I suppose it's cool to know a celebrity and be in their life. I don't think it's cool to watch someone kill themselves or their career, because you're afraid of standing up to someone. These two needed someone to stop them. Someone who put them before the fear of being banished from the "inner circle". All of these people are no longer in Michael's inner circle, because he's dead and now Manny has banished quite a few people out of the fear of "looking dirty". So what did all the coddling of these two get anyone? A corpse and and one way ticket out of Mannywood. Yay. Now they'll get to go do it to the next celebrity who is afraid of not reaching the peaks of their former successes.

Michael's next release (the first in a very long line I'm sure), will sell bigger than almost anything he's done since Dangerous, and the Dodgers ticket sales will be through the roof again. Was it worth it? Of course not. Now it'll be Michael Jackson the junkie child molester (more on that in my next post) and Manny the steroid user. Was that how they wanted to be remembered? God, I hope not. Michael Jackson did so much more in his life than take drugs (yeah yeah yeah or molest children, but I SAID more on that in the NEXT post) and he should be remembered for that. Remember the joy that his music brought, the people he helped and the wonder of his dancing. Forget the drugs. Forget every needle except the one you brought down on Thriller when it was released. With Manny, since he is still alive, there are endless questions and not enough answers. I'd say remember the happiness in his eyes when he hits the ball out of the park, or his exhilaration at winning the Series and stick a pin down on these last few months until there are answers as to how long and what. You know that he's playing clean now, so let's see what he does. Maybe he'll suck, but I doubt it.

It's going to be hard to remember these two as clean, as the media will be shoving it down your throat for a long time that they weren't. At one time, though, they were and you loved them. Did Manny cheat? Probably. Did Michael? Just himself and his children. Does it really concern us? No. Do we enjoy them less knowing what they did? Maybe some of you with Manny, but you shouldn't. We know he was clean during both of the Sox Series wins, and that's what we remember about him. Oddly, neither one of these two will ever have the chance to clear their names (Next post...shut up! I'm not ignoring anything), one because he's dead and the other because it's in his best interest to stay quiet. There will be tragic answers in Michael's case, and lots of speculation in Manny's.

These are two talented men who shot (no pun intended) themselves in the foot by going about things in the wrong way. Yet, the same people who are now crucifying them are the ones who set their pedestals so high, they couldn't step off of them. These are two mortal men, who used drugs. They shouldn't have, but they did and they paid. Let them both have peace.