Back before Mother's Day Megan told me that Motley Crue was coming to town with Alice Cooper. I figured it was going to be a show at a casino, and quickly forgot about it. As Mother's Day drew closer, she reminded me of the show. I got us tickets to the show at the Xcel Energy Center, and put them in her Mother's Day card.
We arrived at the X around 7:05 and could hear a band onstage once inside. We found our nosebleed seats, and watched the unadvertised opener. They were pretty underwhelming, basically ruining pre-show conversations. There seemed to be only about 1,000 or so people in attendance anyway.
After the opener, whose name I never got (and hope I never do), the house lights came up, and a sheet with Alice Cooper's distinctive eyes was draped onstage. More and more people found their seats. Cooper and band took the stage around 7:40 with The Black Widow right into No More Mr. Nice Guy. Cooper, 67, performed the songs that he's played thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of times with the energy and voice of 1970's Alice Cooper.
As far as I could see from my cheap seat, he hasn't slowed a bit. The stage-show featured pyro, whips, a 12-foot walking Frankenstein, and a guillotine decapitation. He played all of his hits, and a few songs that were new to me. He was surrounded by an amazing band that didn't miss a beat. Cooper's only stage banter was introducing the members of the band before the last song: School's Out (featuring an interlude of Pink Floyd's Another Brick In The Wall).
He said one guy was from St. Paul, Minneapolis. Megan thinks he meant he's from the metro area. I say it was a "senior moment." Either way, the entire 55-minutes was a spectacle. Well worth the ticket price.
After a brief intermission, and the Xcel filling almost to capacity, Motley Crue took the stage (for their first Final Tour) opening with Girls, Girls, Girls. It was all 80's hair-metal after that, and I mean that in the best possible way. I felt like I was in junior high again. Vince Neil's stage banter between songs was laced with profanities. Nothing of any substance. How the fk are you? Make some fkn noise. And my favorite: Who out there is a motherfker tonight?
Back in high school I'd heard that Tommy Lee plays his drums while spinning upside down. It's true, and he still does. Before the end of the show, Lee's entire drum kit elevates and spins while moving forward along a track (like a really slow roller coaster), and he beats the skins to remixes of current pop songs. It was quite impressive. As were the pyrotechnics throughout Crue's 90-minute show. There was a lot of fire, even a flame thrower attached to Nikki Sixx's guitar that shot blazes sky high to the beat.
The main show ended with Kickstart My Heart, and a grand finale of pyro and bombs that was better than any fireworks I saw this Fourth of July. It was a finale to go along with their "finale" (until Neil, 54, gambles himself into bankruptcy and has to do another "Final Tour"). Their encore was one song: Home Sweet Home; performed on a mini-stage in the middle of the floor seats; with a montage of old band photos and video displayed on the screen.
I've only been to one other show where the opener was better than the main act. Lenny Kravitz was slightly better than Aerosmith. Motley Crue was great, and Alice was even better.
Megan texted me during the show: Vince Neil is a lard. I thought he looked like he's gained a couple too. We agreed that he was out of breath for the last two numbers before the finale. Credit where credit's due, they have been a rock and roll band for 34-years. On top of the world for over half of those years. They've had their cake, and ate it too.
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