Sunday, May 17, 2015

Concert Review: Mötley Crüe – The Final Tour (Sydney; 16 May, 2015)

There’s plenty of ambivalence in the world these days when a band announces their farewell tour. Why? Because, it rarely actually happens. KISS are a perfect example – they announced a big farewell jaunt in 1996, sold out arenas and stadiums around the world, and nearly two decades later, they’re still going.

For people to shell out big bucks to go to rock shows these days, they need a hook, and Mötley Crüe’s somewhat surprising announcement that they were calling it quits after the best part of three and a half decades of making rock music came with a legal cessation of touring document, signed by all four band members and ratified by the lawyers. Come New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles, the Crüe will sign off for one last time, and they won’t be back on stage as a foursome (save a potential one-off reunion at any Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, you’d suggest).

Mötley Crüe are doing farewells the right way. Walking into Allphones Arena on Saturday night, I knew two things were certain: that we wouldn’t be seeing Nikki Sixx, Mick Mars, Tommy Lee and Vince Neil on stage together again, and that we were in for one hell of a show.

I wasn't disappointed. After Alice Cooper’s trademark pantomime rock show had whipped the crowd into a frenzy – featuring Coop’s epic vocals, Nita Strauss’ epic guitar solos and all the things you expect when you roll into an Alice Cooper show: snakes, rapiers, giant balloons, monsters and beheadings, and the man himself as the ringleader – Mötley Crüe took the stage after the intro, featuring a snippet from, of all things, The Sound of Music, and launched into a hard-as-nails version of ‘Saints of Los Angeles’.

Right from the outset, you knew it was going to be as good as advertised. All four members were on point, and the show benefitted from an opening salvo of ‘Wild Side’ and ‘Primal Scream’ after the opener. That made it three of my favourite Crüe songs back-to-back-to-back, and even the most blasé concert goer would’ve been impressed – surely! – with the tunes and the backing pyrotechnic display, which was as full-on as any show I’ve ever seen, three KISS shows included.

The guttural sound generated by a ferocious rhythm section that pairs Lee, perhaps the best rock drummer of his era, and the stalking figure of Nikki Sixx, has to be heard to be properly believed. It's the sort of sound that'll make your ears bleed...but in the best way possible!

Lee’s extra-curricular activities – mention TL to most people, and the first thing that comes to mind is that video tape with Pamela Anderson – often overshadow his work on stage. He’s as good as there is, and anyone who tells you different is crazy. When he takes to his Crucecifly, a ridiculous roller-coaster that lifts Lee and his kit from the stage, transporting him across the roof of the arena and down into the centre of the pit, drumming as the platform he’s on around and around whilst shooting out confetti, your jaw drops. It’s the most incredible thing I think I’ve ever seen at a concert. A little egotistical? Sure, but also pretty bad ass. It was a solo to remember, fitting of this final tour.

Sixx plays his bass like it’s a rhythm guitar, when he’s not utilising the flamethrower occasionally attached to one of his instruments to set his microphone on fire and spray flame towards the ceiling, and their heavy, cranking sound puts some bands with two guitarists searching for that same sound to shame. He’s responsible for founding the band, and has co-writing credits on just about every big Mötley Crüe song, and he’s a huge presence on stage.

On top of that, the absolute wizardry of Mick Mars. The man who looks positively deathly on stage certainly has fingers that are alive and well. His command of the fret board is unparalleled, and a huge thanks to the people shooting footage for the big screens at Allphones for so many close-up shots of Mick Mars doing what he does best. His solo, following on from Tommy Lee’s spin in the Cruceifly, was another highlight.

Vince Neil, often maligned and once-replaced in Mötley Crüe, can’t hit all of the high notes he used to – the pleasant-to-look-at backing singers, who also appear in various costumes at various times; the nurse outfit for ‘Dr Feelgood’ was a favourite – but he’s as good this tour as he’s been in recent memory. He was roundly booed, in the best sort of way, when announcing that this was the final show.

The set list, which hasn’t changed much since this tour began about a year ago, perfectly samples all of the Crüe’s biggest original composition smash hits – the afore-mentioned ‘Dr Feelgood’, ‘Shout at the Devil’, ‘Kickstart My Heart’, ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’, and ‘Same ‘Ol Situation’ – as well as two covers that they’ve made their own over the years: ‘Smokin’ In The Boys Room’ and ‘Anarchy in the UK’. It’s a powerful collection of songs representing the hair/glam metal era that Mötley rose in, and perfected above all others: all killer, and absolutely zero filler.

Unfortunately, the two hours of The Final Tour fly by like two minutes, and the final song, ‘Home Sweet Home’ is sung from a b-stage in the middle of the pit that rises slowly towards the roof was fitting. The montage of Mötley through the years reminded us of how far they’ve come, and how many bad haircuts the band sported during the heady days of the eighties.

It was a fitting end, singing one of their biggest hits in the middle of a packed arena. To paraphrase the song, years have gone by, and I’d say you kicked some ass. They’re still around when so many others who came up at the same time are long gone.

Towards the end of the show, Vince Neil implored us to “always remember, we’re Mötley fucking Crüe” and based on last night, I’m not sure that we’re likely to forget! It was all kinds of epic.

RIP Mötley Crüe, gone too soon!

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