Mötley Crüe plays the Strip: Is this it for iconic rockers?
Nikki Sixx asked the crowd at Dolby Live on Wednesday night, “How does my hair look?”
Once a hair band, always a hair band, Mötley Crüe looks the part as always as it powers through its residency at the Park MGM Theater. This is a different rock show than we’ve been accustomed to from the Crüe, or Mötley,” as Vince Neil refers to the band.
Today’ Mötley Crüe is a study in survival. “Feelgood” isn’t the only doctor for Mötley. Neil is still nobly recovering from a stroke he suffered Christmas night. That episode and Neil’s recovery pushed the original dates back from the spring to this month. The shows run through this weekend and again Oct. 1-3.
I would not count on any Mötley shows after that. The performances are selling to a reduced-scale theater, the balcony level closed and the wings of the 300 section’s seating on the far left and right draped. It’s a solid crowd, 4,000 or so over 10 dates, but short of the room’s 5,200 capacity for residency productions.
Vince answers the bell
The new Neil sounds good and is moving OK. But understandably, he is not racing across the stage in these shows or moving as he once did. This is a man who just a few months ago was in a wheelchair, regaining use of his left side and told he’d never be back onstage. That he’s performing at all is astonishing.
As he told my buddy Eddie Trunk on the “Trunk Nation” Sirius XM rock show this week, the vocalist is about 90 percent recovered. “My physical therapy is being onstage.”
Neil says brain scans after the December stroke revealed he’d suffered no less than three “mini-strokes” over the years, virtually undetectable, before the big one. The “Live Wire” singer and former Las Vegas resident seems to be playing with house money, as we say around here.
With Neil on board, the band roars. Sixx’s bass lines and Tommy Lee’s thrashing behind the drums provide the thunder. John 5 is a monster musician (the stage features a”5” and a “Sixx”-designed, hanging mic stands for the respective rock stars).
Beyond Mars
Stepping in for the vanquished Mick Mars, John 5 is afforded ample solo work to show off his chops. His musical piece invokes Van Halen’s “Eruption,” Led Zep’s “Black Dog” and Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train.” John 5 later plays a guitar that illuminates with white light from the inside, with what looks to be an LED effect. The show is further enhanced by a pair of fiery backing dancers/vocalists.
But the original members, they have the stories. Lee introduced one of the band’s anthem’s with, “We’d just finished a 2½-year tour with Ozzy Osbourne …” As your mind races to scenes of that infamous tour, Ozzy snorting a line of ants off a pool deck (as depicted accurately in the biopic “The Dirt”), Lee plays the first piano licks of “Home Sweet Home.”
The band had found an otherwise ignored piano in the corner of their studio, Lee brought his feelings to the keys and a classic was born.
Some gems in the set
The set list’s highlights are expected, except when they aren’t. “Dr. Feelgood” still packs a punch. “Shout At The Devil” is a dependable sing-along. “Same Ol’ Situation (S.O.S)” and “Girls, Girls, Girls” resurrect Mötley’s hell-raising days. But a midshow medley included quick covers of “Rock and Roll Part 2,” “Helter Skelter,” “Anarchy in the U.K.,” “Blitzkrieg Bop” and “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)”
“Wild Side,” an absolute must, is unloaded as the full set opens up, with a pair of runways reaching around the stage and another leading to the middle of GA.
A pair of lifts carry Sixx and John 5 over the crowd, regally, reminding of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry taking a hydraulic catwalk high above the fray.
Playing it out
Distressed, grainy, black-and-white video backs the band, bringing to mind the band’s rugged beginnings at Starwood club and Whisky A Go-Go. Those rough-and-tumble images are ideal for a band still punching it out for 10 performances on the Strip.
The Vegas shows are the only concerts Mötley will play this year. Once Neil recovered enough from his stroke to lead the band, backing out of this residency was not an option.
I feel this is it for Mötley Crüe, for all the reasons. They are performing with the energy and intensity of a last stand. The show ends with “Kickstart My Heart,” the right message for a band that has long cheated death to play that song.
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.
