Review of Motley Crue and Kiss on the second night of "The Tour"

Kiss and Motley Crue performed at Jiffy Lube Live on Friday night. Midnight Sun contributor Jay Trucker was there.

Thirty years after they first toured together, Kiss and Motley Crue are back out on the road, opening their 2012 summer tour on an intermittently stormy night in Bristow. But if Crue is officially the opening act on this tour, their bigger stage show, equal-lengthed setlist and more frenzied audience suggests otherwise.

Motley Crue’s stage show is a spectacle. Working with the carnival theme they’ve been experimenting with for years, this tour includes a huge stage production incorporating all of the classic elements of arock 'n' rollcircus and a healthy dose of vaudeville.

The band entered via the aisles in a druid-style ceremony, accompanied by roadies bearing Motley Crue flags. The show began with the eponymous single off the group's latest album, “Saints of Los Angeles.” Frontman Vince Neil’s stage presence may not be impressive enough to carry a show, but he’s barely noticeable mixed in with the lights, smoke, fire, dancing backup singers, and roller-coaster drum set that serve as a backdrop for Neil’s jazzercising routine and often strained vocals.

Motley Crue is one of those rare bands in which the rhythm section’s personalities are larger than the lead’s. This was evident during Friday’s show when Tommy Lee took the spotlight for a two-part drum solo, during which he played the drums while spinning 360 degrees and later picking up an audience member to accompany him.

Lee then played piano on “Home Sweet Home,” probably one of the most touching songs ever performed by a man dressed as a court jester. Bassist/songwriter/biographer Nikki Sixx, who looks like a touring member of Nine Inch Nails these days, took center stage with a flaming bass guitar during “Primal Scream.”

Despite debuting a new song (“Sex”) midset, Crue otherwise stuck to their classics during the 75-minute production, wrapping things up fittingly with one of their biggest hits and self-laudatory tributes to their own decadent legacy, “Kickstart My Heart.”

But if Motley Crue is representative of '80s raunch and excess, Kiss is a genre in and of itself.

Though only half of the original band is represented in the current lineup, the group arrived in full makeup, platform shoes and cartoon regalia, as did many of their fans. Kiss' LED-light stage show didn’t live up to the high expectations set by Motley Crue, and it’s a bit surprising that they didn’t add more to it in order to outshine their showy supporting act.

Taking the stage at 9:45 with their traditional opening song, “Detroit Rock City,” the band front-loaded hits into the first part of the set, following with “Shout it Out Loud,” “I Love it Loud,” and “Love Gun.” Paul Stanley rode a zip-line to the middle of the pavilion for “Love Gun,” utilizing a temporary structure that brought him closer to the audience. Later, long-tongued bassist/reality tv star Gene Simmons spit blood during their new single, “Hell or Hallelujah,” released earlier this month.

Stanley and Simmons left the stage for a midset guitar and drum solo showcasing Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer, current representatives of the Space and Cat Men. Highlighting their '70s roots, the band interspersed bits of The Who’s “Baba O’Reilly” into “Lick it Up.”

If you’ve seen Kiss before, you know what to expect from them, including the mega-hit encore “Rock and Roll All Nite.” Their show remains formulaic, but it’s a formula that has helped them maintain a legion of loyal fans and keeps them drawing as a major touring act 16 years after the band's MTV reunion and resurgent comeback tour. Objectively, however, the metal lunch box heroes haven’t stepped up their touring act to match that of their Sin City-meets-Ringling-Brothers rock-'n'-roll roadshow counterparts in the Crue.

Jay Trucker is a frequent contributor to Midnight Sun. He teaches at the Community College of Baltimore County in Dundalk and blogs occassionally at WNST.net. He last reviewed Def Leppard and Poison at Merriweather Post Pavilion. Wesley Case edited this post.

Motley Crue

"Saints of Los Angeles "
"Wildside"
"Shout at the Devil"
"Same Old Situation"
"Looks that Kill"
"Girl, Don’t Go Away Mad"
"Sex"
Drum solo (club mix and “Roller Coaster”)
"Home Sweet Home (Tommy Lee on piano)"
"Primal Scream"
"Dr. Feelgood"
"Girls, Girls, Girls"
"Kickstart My Heart"

Kiss

"Detroit Rock City"
"Shout it Out Loud"
"I Love it Loud"
"Love Gun"
"Firehouse"
"War Machine"
"Shock Me"
"Hell or Hallelujah"
Bass solo
"God of Thunder"
"Lick it Up ('Baba O’Reilly' splices)"
"Black Diamond"

Encore
"Rock and Roll All Nite"

The above article courtesy of The Baltimore Sun

Nikki Sixx On The Road Again

Bad first impression: The last time Mötley Crüe went on the road with Kiss, the Crüe got kicked off the tour. At least that's the way Nikki Sixx remembers it. "That's what we were told," the Crüe bassist says. "But when I mentioned it to Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, they don't remember it that way." Whatever happened, Mötley Crüe lasted only a handful of dates on Kiss' 1983 Creatures of the Night tour. At the time, rumors swirled that Sixx had gotten caught having sex with then-drummer Eric Carr's girlfriend. "We definitely did do stuff like that back in the day," Sixx says.

Two times the spectacle: With the bands together again after 29 years, the 43-date Mötley Crüe/Kiss tour that kicks off Friday in Bristow, Va., is "not a co-headline but a double headline" bill, Sixx says. The groups collaborated on a stage that incorporates each act's more spectacular elements, like Tommy Lee's drum roller coaster and Kiss's rising platforms. But they want to keep elements of the two productions from overlapping, so don't be surprised if the Crüe goes light on the blood this time around. "Gene has been doing the blood thing since I saw them when I was 14 years old, so we're obviously going to be respectful of that," says Sixx, 53. When it comes to blowing up stuff, though, there's no problem: "We both perceive pyrotechnics in an entirely different way."

Crüe's control: With all the pyro, the bandmates have to be sure they hit their marks. "We have to be at a certain place on the stage, or we will go up in flames," Sixx says. Occasionally, the band has to watch out for overzealous fans, too. One got on stage and "took off in a dead sprint" at guitarist Mick Mars, who has ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory disease of the spine. "I don't think it was malicious, but he put his head down, jumped and actually tackled Mick Mars. Mick went down, his head hit the monitor, his guitar flew off his body. The second that happened, Vince Neil, me and Tommy all jumped the guy. It was scary to see. If the fan had gotten on stage at the wrong time, he could have gotten hurt."

Beyond the stage: In his spare time on the road, Sixx hosts his syndicated radio show, Sixx Sense, and tries to find time for his photography (he published a book of photographs, titled This Is Gonna Hurt, in 2011). "I've got a couple of bikes" he takes along for days off. "I head to the bowels of whichever city I'm in and hope to dig up something moving. Any time I can get off the beaten path, that's when my heart takes off as a photographer."

The rock 'n' roll life, circa 2012: Mötley Crüe fans who lived vicariously through tales of hedonistic exploits during the group's early days might feel let down if they encountered Sixx after one of the band's shows now. "You'd probably be fighting me for the remote to the History Channel," Sixx says. "At the end of a day that starts at 7 o'clock in the morning, I've been going for 15 hours. In the old days, I would amp it up with a line of blow or whatever else was available and keep it going through the night. To be honest with you, I had a hard time being able to write and tour and not be completely burnt out and on the brink of some kind of breakdown."

Unplugged: But the downtime has its upside. "Now I'm able to do so many different things, not only just being a father and being in a really healthy relationship with my girlfriend. The radio show is something I put a lot of time into. I have two bands (Mötley Crüe and Sixx: A.M.), both of them very successful in different ways. At the end of the day, I pull the plug out of the wall. That's the only way I can keep going."

Wire to wire: Since releasing first album Too Fast for Love in 1981, Mötley Crüe has sold more than 80 million albums worldwide. And the group has a new single, Sex, ready for the tour. But Sixx says he knew he had found his life's desire in a rehearsal room in Burbank, Calif., before all of that. "We were showing Vince, with pen and a piece of paper, a song called Live Wire. And I said, 'Mick, play that part.' I sang him the melody line and said, 'Do you want to try it?' He said, 'I got it,' and he grabbed the mike. We played the song top to bottom, first time ever together, perfect. I knew this is everything I've ever wanted in this three minutes and 27 seconds. You know we've never played a show and not played that song?"

Article courtesy USA Today