Sweet lord. That boy don’t skip a meal at all.

He may not look like much now but he’s still got it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poGP4ZkEIGY

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My wife was trying to convince me to go see the Beach Boys this year. I really didn’t want to watch a bunch of old men wheezing on stage (and Brian Wilson wasn’t even going to be there). But then I was saved because the same venue decided to host Ted Nugent and we said fuck no to giving them money.

Cooper has a nodding acquaintance with old time showbiz - you can see elements of Vaudeville as well as some of the more radical musical theatre in his stuff, and he’s had excellent work ethics the whole time. I always found it amazing that the metal magazines used to write about him golfing with Bob Hope and totally approving. Alice can do no wrong.

I saw Motley at a stadium tour they did a couple years ago and Vince was awful. They could have pulled literally anyone from the audience to sing and it would have been better than Vince.

Saying this as a lifelong Crue fan, they’ve never been a good touring band. Even in their heyday it was, at best, a good time with a crowd of like minded people who were mostly stoned or drunk out of their minds. Vince has never been a good live vocalist, he’s just had enough good days to mange to put out a couple of live albums of cherry picked performances.

I seen that tour too. Alice was fucking awesome. So glad I got to see him. Was going to see him on the Frankenstein tour but it got canceled. They were playing with Judas Priest as well, which would have been fucking awesome. I never got to see Priest, but real happy I got to see Alice. Guy still puts up a great show.

For Motley Crue… Yeah Vince is fucking awful. Lol skipped every other word because he was out of breath and mumbled the rest. The YouTube videos just don’t do justice to how bad he is live. I thought Mick Mars was pretty good though. He could still shred on the guitar, which is amazing with the pain he played through.

I concur. Alice was the best part of that concert

I saw Alice last year and he was still awesome.

The problem here is that they used an old photo and shopped Mick Mars out and John5 in, because they either can’t be bothered to take any new promo photos of the band, or the difference between how much better John 5 looks than the rest of those washed-up has-beens is so stark that they don’t want to.

And if this is a promo pic for the tour, wouldn’t advertising the band with a member that won’t be there inaccurate marketing?

These guys aren’t writing music anymore. They’re going out and (mostly) playing to backing tracks and hamming it up for the crowd. The crowds know what they’re getting and don’t give a shit. Fools, money, soon to be parted, all that.

By “removed” I mean they clearly photoshopped Mick out of this photo. I have no problem with Motley Crue continuing on without him (other than Vince Neil being fucking awful). But take some new photos with the current band for fucks sake. Shopping a longtime band mate out is disrespectful, shitty, and mildly infuriating. Especially since he retired due to a painful and crippling disease.

True that. Shit, AC/DC had Axl Rose pop in for Brian Johnson when he had hearing issues. It happens all the time.

I went to an Iron Maiden concert two weeks ago. It was fantastic.

So I’m going to speak to all this as an actual fan from the 80s - but not a huge fan.

The first time I saw Crue was in 2014. By this time, Vince had been an embarrassment to the band for well over a decade - fat, sure - but worse, he just didn’t give enough of a fuck to sing well. At the show I went to, he was just this side of incoherent. It was a shame too, because the band was (and still is, imo) quite good. Sixx had a bass guitar that was also a flamethrower - goddamn, that was cool. Tommy still had the drum kit that turned upside-down, neat. Honestly, the weak point in 2014 (aside from dumbass Vince, obviously) was Mick. He was going through a particularly bad time with his arthritic shit and I know it’s been hard for him, but in 2014 it was like they had him propped up with a board or something - and his playing sucked.

Fast forward to 2022. If you had told me I would have paid money to see this band 8 years later, I would have laughed at you. And to be fair, we didn’t go to see Crue, we went because Poison, Def Leppard and Joan Jett were also playing. All three of those bands were stunning. It was a great show. But what of Motley Crue?

Shockingly, Vince had made a lateral move in eight years. He still sucked, but he didn’t suck any worse. Tommy didn’t have the upside-down drums and Sixx didn’t have a flamethrower bass, but they still sounded great. It is claimed (by Mick) that they use a backing track. Nobody gives a fuck anymore. Honest to Christ, a band like Crue can’t possibly have enough guitars live to replicate their studio sound, so backing tracks are perfectly acceptable. What isn’t acceptable is when when what you do play live sounds like shit - and in 2014, that’s exactly what Mick Mars sounded like.

In 2022, however, he sounded fucking amazing. And he didn’t seem to be propped up anymore. I was honestly surprised. Even without the flamethrower and upside-down drums, their video/lights/effects were just mind-blowing. I don’t care what anyone says - I’d pay to see them again in this incarnation. It was that good.