Motley Crue
The Joint, Las Vegas

Las Vegas is loud, it’s trashy, it’s colourful and it’s very fucking dirty. There is no doubt that, if it was a band, Las Vegas would be Motley Crue. This being the case, you could say the month-long residency by the Hollywood rockers is a match made in heaven/hell. With frontman Vince Neil already a local in these parts, February saw Las Vegas officially become Motley Crue City as fans flocked from far and wide to join in the debauchery.

Taking over The Joint, a reasonably intimate venue, Crue promised fans an interactive experience they would never forget. With no need to move from the venue, the LA quartet locked the doors, stocked up the bar and put on their biggest, loudest, snottiest, filthiest rock ‘n’ roll show making sure each night got a little rowdier than the last. Celebrating thirty years of sleaze, the quartet made sure this was bigger and nastier than anything they’d ever done making sure that, visually, this was everything you could want from a Motley Crue show. For two hours fans experienced hair-frazzling pyros, strippers, midgets and “that fucking drum solo”. There was audience interaction, ringmasters, fire and that’s before we’ve even touched on the set list. Spanning their thirty year career, the set had every classic Crue hit from opener Live Wire to main set closer, the ticker-tape filled, adrenaline-fuelled Kickstart My Heart. In between there was an acoustic interlude, the stripper National Anthem Girls Girls Girls and the sizzling Primal Scream. This was Motley Crue at their finest.

Recent press rumours have hinted that frontman Vince Neil might quit the band following these shows but, seeing Neil flying across the audience singing Home Sweet Home, simply underlined the fact that Motley Crue without Neil is an unthinkable proposition. The same goes for Mick Mars whose health problems have been well documented in recent months and are clear for all to see. However, for all those problems, tonight, like the rest of the band, Mars looked like he relished every moment he was on that stage and without Mars there would be no Wild Side, no Shout At The Devil and no Motley Crue. For months these shows have been hyped up by the band, the press and the city of Las Vegas. Tonight Motley Crue kept good on that promise and made sure Sin City would never be quite the same again.

Review by Graham Finney