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Mötley Crüe bring their glammy spectacle to Orlando this weekend | Photo by Dustin Jack
FEINTS OF LOS ANGELES
Should we go away mad — or to Camping World Stadium — because Mötley Crüe just won’t go away? BY STEVE SCHNEIDER
F
we change our mind.” Couldn’t ew things are tougher we have learned that from Todd than trying to make a case Miner Law at a far more reasonfor the continued exisMÖTLEY CRÜE, DEF LEPPARD, able hourly rate? tence of Mötley Crüe in 2022. POISON, JOAN JETT & THE Any argument one might fashion And yet … and yet … there’s BLACKHEARTS about mindless fun or stadium something about Mötley that can 4:30 p.m. Sunday, June 19 catharsis could barely withstand get you rooting for them despite Camping World Stadium the onslaught of withering yourself. Especially if you were 1 Citrus Bowl Place, memes comparing Vince Neil to there at the beginning. After all, campingworldstadium.com the Rankin-Bass Bumble — or this is the group that spooged its $49-$3,000 YouTube clips of him wheezing way onto the scene in 1981 with his way through another vocal Too Fast for Love — a record that performance that practically reinremains the finest slab of L.A. melvents the concept of phonetics. ody metal not titled Van Halen. As for Neil, I always choose to think of him the way he As they head into Camping World this week as part of a long-postponed tour with Def Leppard, Poison and Joan was when I first clapped eyes on his band, on Jan. 30, 1984, Jett, the Crüe are useful mostly for the lesson that a legal at Madison Square Garden (opening for Ozzy Osbourne). His agreement to never reunite can include the codicil “unless M.O. that night was the polar opposite of the state-fair humili-
ations we’re now accustomed to: Race to the very end of the stage-right catwalk, sing two lines while dangling precariously over the crowd, then sprint across the stage to the very end of the stage-left catwalk to sing the next two lines. Repeat for an hour, never running out of breath. Clearly, this was a man who had been told he could be a millionaire by the end of the year if he wanted it badly enough. He did. After that ... well, we all know what happened. The millions went to paying off vehicular manslaughter, and the Crüe’s subsequent recorded output mostly made them look as dumb as they were, not as smart as they could sometimes manage to appear. (After the debut, there was no more name-checking Sandra Dee.) Decades of hard living and commercial compromises later, they’re in danger of getting their ass kicked by Def Leppard, a band who sound as if they’re playing to a click track even when they aren’t. But if only for old times’ sake, I’d like to believe the P.R. boasts that Neil has finally pulled his act together for this allimportant round of shows. Failing that, I’d like to think that whatever vestigial shortcomings we might see and hear will be offset by the opportunity to reconnect with a part of us that once knew how it felt to be under the gun, on the run, to be Public Enemy Number One. I can’t support that optimism on an objective, intellectual level, of course. I can’t decide for you if you should risk the money. I’m not the one they call Dr. Life Coach Feelgood. I’m just a guy who has a hard time letting go of a crush. But I do know one thing: If you’re going to get tanked for the show, do it outside a package store beforehand instead of paying those hyper-inflated stadium beer prices. Mick Mars might not have learned anything since 1983, but you and I sure have.
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JUNE 15-21, 2022 ● ORLANDO WEEKLY
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