Gods, I hope so.
I was a huge Motley Crue fan. They seemed like a natural progression for me, from Ozzy, Alice Cooper and so forth. They were theatrical and pretty androgynous. All that make up, I remember more than a couple of people asking if they were male or female. This was before Marilyn Manson was on the scene to takeover that question. I was a long way from California, but these guys owned that energy.
I was twelve or thirteen. They were rebellious, raunchy and some of their earlier stuff actually was pretty heavy considering the music scene at the time. I had a total crush on Vince Neil (and I’m admitting this publicly) and wanted my hair to be just like his. I had a Motley Crue Aleister Fiend satin jacket that I wore and was repaired over and over by my very diligent mother who didn’t want me walking around with holes in my clothes. They were my first rock band I met – before they became really famous. I even got a kiss from my crush (which thinking back – ewww cooties! So glad it was on the cheek.)
I’m pretty loyal to the bands I follow. There are only a couple of bands in my history that I have stopped listening to: Metallica & Motley Crue; although for completely different reasons.
While there were many things that lead to my actual embarrassment of being their fan for so many years – I just think it got to be too much. After Theater of Pain, it seemed like it was actually causing me pain to listen to them. Silly as it sounds, the last time I saw them live was during the Dr. Feelgood tour in which the last song they played was “Don’t go away mad (Just go away)” and I admit I went away mad and never went back. (Yeah, yeah I know it was a popular song, but I took it personally!)
So there you go – a bit of a background of my own history of Motley Crue (Hey I didn’t even go into the whole history project I did on them in high school – I got 87% woohoo!).
The big news that this was their final tour, amused me. Surely, only 100 rock bands ahead of them have done the same thing. Announce a final tour, bank some big bucks and then get bored and do some more shows a few more years later. Rinse, repeat. I expect it will be the same for Motley Crue. I’ve never wished more for it to be true.
It made me sadder to see Alice Cooper open up for Motley Crue for most of the tour. Because you see, I still love Alice, but I wasn’t willing to spend the crazy amount of money required to see him as an opening group for Motley Crue. I am stubborn that way and quite frankly Alice outclasses Motley in every single damn thing he does – except maybe the hair.
The music lost it’s magic. Vince lost his voice. Nikki Sixx wrote a book about his heroine days – and magically remembered stuff that a sober person doesn’t remember. Tommy Lee wrote a book that talked through his penis (admittedly funny at first, but like most dicks they lose their charm after awhile) and Vince Neil’s book was so stupid, you know, because you know, all he did was you know, talk about blondes and boobs you know and whoever the hell proofread it should have removed about 2,000 “you knows” before they published the stupid thing and I threw it out the window. That book was like watching Napoleon Dynamite, you could feel your brain cells leaving your body but just like a train wreck you can’t look away.
Is it terrible of me to rejoice a little bit knowing they supposedly played their final concert on New Year’s Eve?
RIP Motley Crue – Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)
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