A note on time traveling
1) In the Mesozoic period, the tyrannosaurus rex fuckin’ ruled.
2) In the 13th Century in Asia and what is now considered most of Eastern Europe, Genghis Kahn and the Mongol Hordes fuckin’ ruled.
3) In 1983, on LA’s fabled Sunset Strip, Motley Crue fuckin’ ruled.
Another interesting note, in an astonishing historical anomaly compared to other currently touring acts of their genre (dirt metal, bitches), Motley Crue still fuckin’ rules. Yeah, I know, I was surprised too. They kicked my ass and I wasn’t even expecting it. Thank goodness we were on the lawn and too far away to see any of ‘em up close, but from our position on the grass and at the bottom of a delicious $16 beer, they still even looked like Heavy Metal Sex Gods. Except for Mick Mars, but I think he’s cool with that. More on Mick later.
But before I go on with my account of this magical rock-filled Canuck ridden evening, I just want to get one thing straight: shut up and admit that you secretly love gratuitous dirt rock. Admit that you love epic rock songs and cheesy hooks and hedonistic balls-out guitar solos and pyrotechnics and fake blood and shit. It’s impossible to hate. If you want proof just look at the recent popularity of Guitar Hero (PLEASE JUST GET A REAL GUITAR!). In fact, I’ve personally seen every one of you screaming right along to the chorus of “Wild Side” in your cars with the windows rolled up while you’re still in you’re work clothes and it’s hot as hell but you don’t want that guy in the Mazda 6 next to you to know that you’re dirt rockin’ even though he’s doing it too. And I know for a fact that your back arches in passionate freedom every time “Kickstart My Heart” comes on your iPod when you’re sitting in church on Sunday to appease your sweet but judgmental grandma. I know it’s not her fault, she was just raised in a different era. All musical integrity aside, it’s ok to like that stuff. It’s really OK. Have a little gratuitous fun once in a while, you big crybaby, even the guys from Arcade Fire own a Ratt album or two.
Aaaaaaaanyway, back to the show. It was at DTE Energy Music Theater (Pine Knob to all the T-Rexes that are reading this…), which is a lovely outdoor venue with accessible bathrooms, delightful landscaping, and excellent acoustics. They also have a great lawn if you don’t want to mortgage your house to afford seats. Or if you want to stand up, or if you want to smoke pot and tickle your best gal and not get caught. Parking is a real bitch and since there’s only one way in or out unless you’re a VIP, I recommend getting there a little earlier than you’re thinking because there will be a little (tons of, really) traffic to battle and don’t plan on scooting out of there any earlier than one hour after you’ve had your face rocked off because no matter if you have to work at 7am and are two hours from home, it ain’t happening. Parking there sucks.
The tour is called CrueFest and it’s in promotion of their new album Saints of Los Angeles. I recommend this album. It actually rules. Now that you’re cool with your inner dirtbag, check it out. The title track will have you shaving your head and pulling your Zubas off the back shelf of your closet in no time. The bill also included Trapt, Papa Roach, wicked awesome Crue bass player Nikki Sixx’s side project, Sixx: AM, and radio-romancing Buckcherry. You’re probably saying that you don’t care much about any of those bands except maybe Sixx: AM and you don’t really hate them like Creed hate them, you just don’t really care. That’s what I thought too, but Papa Roach was actually really good live despite having glorious sunlight in their eyes and a crowd too largely focused on getting chemically imbalanced to pay much attention. I even found myself bouncing a little on my heels to the f-bomb ridden, skinny jeans and tambourine queerness of Buckcherry. They did a fifteen-minute funked out version of “Crazy Bitch” and that guy wasn’t half bad either. Yes, the weather helped, it was 80 and sunny and it was my birthday and I had a beer and maybe wasn’t as discerning as I might have normally been, but this was a rock show after all. Good can mean a couple of different things.
Then, dusk came to relieve the legions of sweaty Detroit rockers and some guy showed KP and I how he attempted to sew his own nipple back together after he ripped out his ring earlier. He ended up having it professionally done at the dentist’s office where his girlfriend worked, but it was still pretty hard-core. We were coming out of the bathrooms and waiting for a couple of crazy Canadians to buy us beer when we heard the first couple of bars from the one-and-only Motley Crue. Go time. They opened their set with the radio smasher “Kickstart My Heart” which sounded amazing paired with the dusky air and the fat guys we were plowing through to land a decent spot. We got one, and we rocked, bitches. They sounded (and I hate to admit this cause I’ve seen how old these guys are and how years haven’t necessarily been gracious to them) really…sexy. They had a huge stage show and really tall boots and plenty of leather and Nikki Sixx looked like he was a hundred feet tall (as any T Rex should be). There was fire and video screens and some weird stripper angel that made out with Vince Neil (eew) onstage right about the time that he said “pussy”. It would have been really hard for even the emo-est angsty sad sack to not be carried away in the mayhem. Even Tommy Lee showed up in good graces, lively, beating the skins like they were Pam Anderson (ooh, sorry). I was hoping for one of his famous steel cage solos or at least for him to take his pants off, but no luck, even on the drums thing, which might be the only real gripe I have about the show. In fact, no more than one week later, renowned drummer so excellent that he sits in for the one and only Neil Peart once in a while, Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins made Tommy Lee his bitch with an absolutely ripping solo at the Van Andel that may have (contrary to the Crue) proved to be the highlight of their set. I mean, Tommy said “good night, fuckers” and that was it. I even asked nicely. Hey Tommy, aren’t you famous for your drum solos and giant crank? That is whack, yo.
And I’ll swear this right here and now: I will never ever say another foul word against Mick Mars again after seeing him live. Seemingly propped up underneath a long trench coat (he has some kind of crippling muscle disease)(Ankylosing spondylitis to be exact, I’m KP and I looked it up), Mick ushered his band in on a black, shimmering rainbow of brutality. He wasted any sense of coddling or (god forbid!) going soft with one jarring chord and never looked back. He may be half dead, but if the devil himself played the electric guitar in a metal band, he’d sound like Mick Mars. Shit, he’d even look like Mick Mars, who makes Alice Cooper look like a boyfriend on The Hills. He, like so many other undead axe wielders, has been pickled by the potency of rock, mummified by music’s most wicked achievement, Richards, Page, Tufnel, Young, Mars. Every song he had a solo, every riff he played better and better, as if it was actually Mick Mars that ushered the dusk into the night. Ok, that’s a bit dramatic I’ll admit, but when I say Mick fuckin’ RULED, I mean it. Vince didn’t sound as bad as I originally guessed, Nikki was a seasoned showman, fueling the crowd’s insane screams and forcing us all in love with him mid-show with what can only be described as Nikki-robics (everybody sit the fuck down and when I count to three, stand up and scream your fucking heads off until the song starts. It will look really cool, I promise!), Tommy was there and he said the f-word probably the most, but Mick Mick Mick. He was merciless. He was superb. We stopped mid-spasm and gaped at the beauty during every song. “Dude, Mick Mars is good.”
Get up and go see this tour on it’s second leg this fall. Get up and do it. If you’re looking for a little escapism, a good excuse to let the tats hang out, or catch a glimpse of the entire city of Milwaukee’s boobies, get a ticket to CrueFest. Dip your toes in the cheese, get a little firework on ya, have a little freaking fun. Yeah it’s not math rock, it’s not Minus the Bear or Harry and the Potters, but for being a bunch of old guys* they rocked our faces right back into our brains and left us desperate for more and flashing some hot but hammered eastsiders out in the parking lot on the way home. Couldn’t think of a better and more appropriate place to be ushered officially into the land of creepy old ladies than in the wrinkled (and in Vince’s case, Botoxed) palms of Motley Crue. ROCK ON.
*I would still totally do Nikki Sixx by the way, and KP says that she’s got dibs on Tommy. Nikki, bro, Kat VonD is a fox but she looks too much like you, dude. Give me a call sometime.
And then, KP comes through with the Golden Tickets and we find ourselves in the company of the real Rock n’ Roll Jesus…
What a totally different concert experience the Foo Fighters were. Where as Motley Crue played like they had something to prove (which they did, and they definitely proved it), the Foos didn’t give a fuck. They knew exactly what they were doing and who was watching them. Shit, Dave Grohl didn’t even know what city he was playing in (“What’s up…arena!”) and it didn’t matter because regardless of the city or the venue, Dave showed up for one reason alone, to rock it. He’s great fun to watch. He (unlike Mick, who beat the piss out of his strings) is from the Jack White collective of guitar playing, that is, the form that makes girls liken your playing to sex in their minds. Hottttttt. If you’ve never heard of the Foo Fighters before, than you’re probably from some kind of mud hut in Indonesia or something where no radio signals reach and no power chords are accessible. If this is the case, I think a big-budget rock show isn’t maybe the smartest method of integration into the twentieth century you could be taking. It can be a bit much. For everyone (and I mean everyone) else, even if you don’t think you know any Foo Fighters songs, you definitely know a couple of Foo Fighters songs. They’ve been a driving cultural force in American rock for more than a decade, with at least a dozen top 10 hits and radio mainstays. You might remember them for the awesome intro to “Hero.” You might remember them from a smattering of movie trailers and soundtracks, or their often-humorous music videos. You might remember them for Dave Grohl’s teeth. Those are some nice teeth, Dave. Whatever the motivator, these guys played for two hours alone and there were only one or two songs (including the Nirvana song) that I didn’t recognize. As Dave said himself, sweaty and beardy (yes!!!) and looking all crazy-like “I’m not a big fan of the bullshit.” No ego strokery and no acoustical whimpering, even the middle set, played with acoustic guitar and piano in the round, still rocked substantially. One of the show’s many breakout highlights came when Dave played their haunting and immediate classic “Everlong” solo style and every kid in there hung on desperately to his every utterance. It was intense. It was a song you could feel. Other best-of clips included Taylor Hawkin’s totally wicked, ass-chapping drum solo, their funny little back-stage prequel to the encore cheering thing, and pretty much any time Dave Grohl spoke or addressed his audience or his band, “The Pretender,” “Cheer Up Boys (Your Makeup is Running),”and the monkeys on the screen during (you guessed it!) “Monkey Wrench.” Some of the more disappointing moments came in the totally pointless appearance of ex-Foo guitarist Pat Smear, who just waved at people a lot and didn’t really do anything at all. They also had this weird fiddle chick that I found unnecessary and hard to make heads or tails of.
At the short end, they did a good job making the VanAndel Arena feel like an intimate little San Francisco venue and totally reminded us, the sweaty masses, why in fact they’ve commanded the lead for as long as they have. We were all the Foo Fighter’s bitches in a way, walking out of there slightly sweaty and slightly beer-y and exhausted from the intensity of one song after another. They aren’t international super hits for nothing, and they weren’t about to be satisfied until every one of us knew it. Grand Rapids (that is the town you were in, Dave) layed down like a submissive puppy at the feet of the Foo Fighters, without even putting up a fight.
Recommended (if you’ve made it this far) post-blog media:
The Dirt by Motley Crue and Neil Strauss. Never has media spin been handled so gentlemanly by a group of such unlovable heroes. In fact, I totally loved them all in the end and felt a little remorse when it was over. Well laid out (no pun intended) and well done. I was sadder to see this one close than Harry Potter 7.
Diamond Hoo Ha by Supergrass. These adorable Brits opened for the Foo Fighters and rocked the place at an unexpected pitch. This album (any of their albums, really) is a gas to listen to. Cheerie-O mates! Good Show, alright? Jolly good!
Oh and KP? I know for a fact that you don’t party.
1) In the Mesozoic period, the tyrannosaurus rex fuckin’ ruled.
2) In the 13th Century in Asia and what is now considered most of Eastern Europe, Genghis Kahn and the Mongol Hordes fuckin’ ruled.
3) In 1983, on LA’s fabled Sunset Strip, Motley Crue fuckin’ ruled.
Another interesting note, in an astonishing historical anomaly compared to other currently touring acts of their genre (dirt metal, bitches), Motley Crue still fuckin’ rules. Yeah, I know, I was surprised too. They kicked my ass and I wasn’t even expecting it. Thank goodness we were on the lawn and too far away to see any of ‘em up close, but from our position on the grass and at the bottom of a delicious $16 beer, they still even looked like Heavy Metal Sex Gods. Except for Mick Mars, but I think he’s cool with that. More on Mick later.
But before I go on with my account of this magical rock-filled Canuck ridden evening, I just want to get one thing straight: shut up and admit that you secretly love gratuitous dirt rock. Admit that you love epic rock songs and cheesy hooks and hedonistic balls-out guitar solos and pyrotechnics and fake blood and shit. It’s impossible to hate. If you want proof just look at the recent popularity of Guitar Hero (PLEASE JUST GET A REAL GUITAR!). In fact, I’ve personally seen every one of you screaming right along to the chorus of “Wild Side” in your cars with the windows rolled up while you’re still in you’re work clothes and it’s hot as hell but you don’t want that guy in the Mazda 6 next to you to know that you’re dirt rockin’ even though he’s doing it too. And I know for a fact that your back arches in passionate freedom every time “Kickstart My Heart” comes on your iPod when you’re sitting in church on Sunday to appease your sweet but judgmental grandma. I know it’s not her fault, she was just raised in a different era. All musical integrity aside, it’s ok to like that stuff. It’s really OK. Have a little gratuitous fun once in a while, you big crybaby, even the guys from Arcade Fire own a Ratt album or two.
Aaaaaaaanyway, back to the show. It was at DTE Energy Music Theater (Pine Knob to all the T-Rexes that are reading this…), which is a lovely outdoor venue with accessible bathrooms, delightful landscaping, and excellent acoustics. They also have a great lawn if you don’t want to mortgage your house to afford seats. Or if you want to stand up, or if you want to smoke pot and tickle your best gal and not get caught. Parking is a real bitch and since there’s only one way in or out unless you’re a VIP, I recommend getting there a little earlier than you’re thinking because there will be a little (tons of, really) traffic to battle and don’t plan on scooting out of there any earlier than one hour after you’ve had your face rocked off because no matter if you have to work at 7am and are two hours from home, it ain’t happening. Parking there sucks.
The tour is called CrueFest and it’s in promotion of their new album Saints of Los Angeles. I recommend this album. It actually rules. Now that you’re cool with your inner dirtbag, check it out. The title track will have you shaving your head and pulling your Zubas off the back shelf of your closet in no time. The bill also included Trapt, Papa Roach, wicked awesome Crue bass player Nikki Sixx’s side project, Sixx: AM, and radio-romancing Buckcherry. You’re probably saying that you don’t care much about any of those bands except maybe Sixx: AM and you don’t really hate them like Creed hate them, you just don’t really care. That’s what I thought too, but Papa Roach was actually really good live despite having glorious sunlight in their eyes and a crowd too largely focused on getting chemically imbalanced to pay much attention. I even found myself bouncing a little on my heels to the f-bomb ridden, skinny jeans and tambourine queerness of Buckcherry. They did a fifteen-minute funked out version of “Crazy Bitch” and that guy wasn’t half bad either. Yes, the weather helped, it was 80 and sunny and it was my birthday and I had a beer and maybe wasn’t as discerning as I might have normally been, but this was a rock show after all. Good can mean a couple of different things.
Then, dusk came to relieve the legions of sweaty Detroit rockers and some guy showed KP and I how he attempted to sew his own nipple back together after he ripped out his ring earlier. He ended up having it professionally done at the dentist’s office where his girlfriend worked, but it was still pretty hard-core. We were coming out of the bathrooms and waiting for a couple of crazy Canadians to buy us beer when we heard the first couple of bars from the one-and-only Motley Crue. Go time. They opened their set with the radio smasher “Kickstart My Heart” which sounded amazing paired with the dusky air and the fat guys we were plowing through to land a decent spot. We got one, and we rocked, bitches. They sounded (and I hate to admit this cause I’ve seen how old these guys are and how years haven’t necessarily been gracious to them) really…sexy. They had a huge stage show and really tall boots and plenty of leather and Nikki Sixx looked like he was a hundred feet tall (as any T Rex should be). There was fire and video screens and some weird stripper angel that made out with Vince Neil (eew) onstage right about the time that he said “pussy”. It would have been really hard for even the emo-est angsty sad sack to not be carried away in the mayhem. Even Tommy Lee showed up in good graces, lively, beating the skins like they were Pam Anderson (ooh, sorry). I was hoping for one of his famous steel cage solos or at least for him to take his pants off, but no luck, even on the drums thing, which might be the only real gripe I have about the show. In fact, no more than one week later, renowned drummer so excellent that he sits in for the one and only Neil Peart once in a while, Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins made Tommy Lee his bitch with an absolutely ripping solo at the Van Andel that may have (contrary to the Crue) proved to be the highlight of their set. I mean, Tommy said “good night, fuckers” and that was it. I even asked nicely. Hey Tommy, aren’t you famous for your drum solos and giant crank? That is whack, yo.
And I’ll swear this right here and now: I will never ever say another foul word against Mick Mars again after seeing him live. Seemingly propped up underneath a long trench coat (he has some kind of crippling muscle disease)(Ankylosing spondylitis to be exact, I’m KP and I looked it up), Mick ushered his band in on a black, shimmering rainbow of brutality. He wasted any sense of coddling or (god forbid!) going soft with one jarring chord and never looked back. He may be half dead, but if the devil himself played the electric guitar in a metal band, he’d sound like Mick Mars. Shit, he’d even look like Mick Mars, who makes Alice Cooper look like a boyfriend on The Hills. He, like so many other undead axe wielders, has been pickled by the potency of rock, mummified by music’s most wicked achievement, Richards, Page, Tufnel, Young, Mars. Every song he had a solo, every riff he played better and better, as if it was actually Mick Mars that ushered the dusk into the night. Ok, that’s a bit dramatic I’ll admit, but when I say Mick fuckin’ RULED, I mean it. Vince didn’t sound as bad as I originally guessed, Nikki was a seasoned showman, fueling the crowd’s insane screams and forcing us all in love with him mid-show with what can only be described as Nikki-robics (everybody sit the fuck down and when I count to three, stand up and scream your fucking heads off until the song starts. It will look really cool, I promise!), Tommy was there and he said the f-word probably the most, but Mick Mick Mick. He was merciless. He was superb. We stopped mid-spasm and gaped at the beauty during every song. “Dude, Mick Mars is good.”
Get up and go see this tour on it’s second leg this fall. Get up and do it. If you’re looking for a little escapism, a good excuse to let the tats hang out, or catch a glimpse of the entire city of Milwaukee’s boobies, get a ticket to CrueFest. Dip your toes in the cheese, get a little firework on ya, have a little freaking fun. Yeah it’s not math rock, it’s not Minus the Bear or Harry and the Potters, but for being a bunch of old guys* they rocked our faces right back into our brains and left us desperate for more and flashing some hot but hammered eastsiders out in the parking lot on the way home. Couldn’t think of a better and more appropriate place to be ushered officially into the land of creepy old ladies than in the wrinkled (and in Vince’s case, Botoxed) palms of Motley Crue. ROCK ON.
*I would still totally do Nikki Sixx by the way, and KP says that she’s got dibs on Tommy. Nikki, bro, Kat VonD is a fox but she looks too much like you, dude. Give me a call sometime.
And then, KP comes through with the Golden Tickets and we find ourselves in the company of the real Rock n’ Roll Jesus…
What a totally different concert experience the Foo Fighters were. Where as Motley Crue played like they had something to prove (which they did, and they definitely proved it), the Foos didn’t give a fuck. They knew exactly what they were doing and who was watching them. Shit, Dave Grohl didn’t even know what city he was playing in (“What’s up…arena!”) and it didn’t matter because regardless of the city or the venue, Dave showed up for one reason alone, to rock it. He’s great fun to watch. He (unlike Mick, who beat the piss out of his strings) is from the Jack White collective of guitar playing, that is, the form that makes girls liken your playing to sex in their minds. Hottttttt. If you’ve never heard of the Foo Fighters before, than you’re probably from some kind of mud hut in Indonesia or something where no radio signals reach and no power chords are accessible. If this is the case, I think a big-budget rock show isn’t maybe the smartest method of integration into the twentieth century you could be taking. It can be a bit much. For everyone (and I mean everyone) else, even if you don’t think you know any Foo Fighters songs, you definitely know a couple of Foo Fighters songs. They’ve been a driving cultural force in American rock for more than a decade, with at least a dozen top 10 hits and radio mainstays. You might remember them for the awesome intro to “Hero.” You might remember them from a smattering of movie trailers and soundtracks, or their often-humorous music videos. You might remember them for Dave Grohl’s teeth. Those are some nice teeth, Dave. Whatever the motivator, these guys played for two hours alone and there were only one or two songs (including the Nirvana song) that I didn’t recognize. As Dave said himself, sweaty and beardy (yes!!!) and looking all crazy-like “I’m not a big fan of the bullshit.” No ego strokery and no acoustical whimpering, even the middle set, played with acoustic guitar and piano in the round, still rocked substantially. One of the show’s many breakout highlights came when Dave played their haunting and immediate classic “Everlong” solo style and every kid in there hung on desperately to his every utterance. It was intense. It was a song you could feel. Other best-of clips included Taylor Hawkin’s totally wicked, ass-chapping drum solo, their funny little back-stage prequel to the encore cheering thing, and pretty much any time Dave Grohl spoke or addressed his audience or his band, “The Pretender,” “Cheer Up Boys (Your Makeup is Running),”and the monkeys on the screen during (you guessed it!) “Monkey Wrench.” Some of the more disappointing moments came in the totally pointless appearance of ex-Foo guitarist Pat Smear, who just waved at people a lot and didn’t really do anything at all. They also had this weird fiddle chick that I found unnecessary and hard to make heads or tails of.
At the short end, they did a good job making the VanAndel Arena feel like an intimate little San Francisco venue and totally reminded us, the sweaty masses, why in fact they’ve commanded the lead for as long as they have. We were all the Foo Fighter’s bitches in a way, walking out of there slightly sweaty and slightly beer-y and exhausted from the intensity of one song after another. They aren’t international super hits for nothing, and they weren’t about to be satisfied until every one of us knew it. Grand Rapids (that is the town you were in, Dave) layed down like a submissive puppy at the feet of the Foo Fighters, without even putting up a fight.
Recommended (if you’ve made it this far) post-blog media:
The Dirt by Motley Crue and Neil Strauss. Never has media spin been handled so gentlemanly by a group of such unlovable heroes. In fact, I totally loved them all in the end and felt a little remorse when it was over. Well laid out (no pun intended) and well done. I was sadder to see this one close than Harry Potter 7.
Diamond Hoo Ha by Supergrass. These adorable Brits opened for the Foo Fighters and rocked the place at an unexpected pitch. This album (any of their albums, really) is a gas to listen to. Cheerie-O mates! Good Show, alright? Jolly good!
Oh and KP? I know for a fact that you don’t party.
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