A strange trifecta of events over three consecutive days – in the middle of the week no less. Here in Part I we will tackle the first two days – a bizarre Tuesday with Tesla
& a sad goodbye to an old favorite on Wed.
Come Thurs we get into something completely different, stay tuned……
Tesla – July 15th – House of Blues – Dallas, TX
This was a weird night from beginning to end whose origins were already seeped in unspeakable dysfunction and continued on until it spiraled so out of control, its a wonder I’m still alive. Sound like my normal exagerrations? Not this time, in fact I might even be understating it a bit.
Let’s start here: My older sister is always bugging me for concert tickets – I really don’t have a problem with that, its’s just that she has a record of asking, I comply by cashing in a few favors or dolling out a few bucks, only to hear on the day of the show, she now can’t go. Then it starts all over again with the asking – repeat.
So, I’ve adopted a policy of kinda just ignoring these requests, but this one, was not to be ignored. She was relentless for months about me getting her tickets to see Tesla who were playing just a few days before her birthday. The reminders neared daily, her insistence neared harrassment, so I cashed in a favor and a few days before the show I got her a pair of tickets to the sold out show. Only for her to tell me when I called her with the good news that of course, now she couldn’t go.
The problem with that other than the obvious is that if no one claims those tickets and the person that went out of there way for me to get me those tickets finds out, it comes back to me. Now, I’m not the world’s biggest Tesla fan and hadn’t planned on going to the show originally, but I also hold no aversion to attending.
The Red Leather gang & I saw them on Rocklahoma trek number II a few years back and they were great. Sucks that I have to trek out to Dallas alone to see a band that I could take or leave, especially when I had shows the next two nights ahead of me. So I called up the Red Leather dude, we haven’t hung in awhile and he was in.
He beat me there and we meet up and get inside right as the first song starts –
Now, a few disclaimers: RL Dude & I have an unspoken agreement, I secure the tickets/credentials, he provides the alcohol – which is great for him as I’m not a a big drinker at all & always a cheap date. Second, while his personality is totally irresistable, he’s proven himself to be untrustworthy time & time again, so you have to keep on your toes with him. Third, while he just seems to ooze dishonesty and just cast a shadow of transparent shadiness, people just can’t seem to get enough of him. Great for him. I get it, he used to be on the radio on a promeninent station etc. but it’s more than that – for an average looking guy in his mid 40s, I’ve never seen a guy just naturally attract women like he does. Women that don’t know of his once-local-mini-celebrity-status, their just into him, like immediately.
Again, great for him and I’d love to cheer him on, but what happens when you attend a show with him is maddening – it goes something like this:
1) Meet at agreed upon meeting spot, when you arrive he’s already working three chics and is surrounded by local musician fanboys.
2) Go inside, he has to do his monologue on every security guard, ticket taker & bartender because he knows all of them.
3) If he is walking behind you, you have to constantly look over your shoulder because he is stopped every three feet by some local musician who he again plies the monologue on.
4) When he’s not doing that, he’s hitting on EVERY GIRL HE SEES
I guess his logic is the rule of averages, that someone will eventually be interested & though that shit never works for anyone else – for him IT TOTALLY WORKS –
Here’s where it gets downright infuriating – he and I have joked about this for years, but somehow he is my Kryptonite –
You know that episode of Seinfeld where when one of them is up the other is down and the third is even-Steven? That’s us, whenever we are together, I’m always the one who is down. The musicians that are on his nuts, don’t even give me a cursory nod, and if we run into two (or more) girls they both want him and won’t even talk to me. Again, who cares? I’m totally taken anyway, but I just can’t figure it out & you know no one sounds crazier than the person who’s shouting “I’m Not Crazy!!”? –
Well the other thing is that though I have NO ONE to blame for this, they way I react to it, is scarily immature, like to the point that I don’t even recognize myself.
I start getting competitive which isn’t my nature and try to match him drink for drink which is totally not me – The real tragedy is that, I’m a grown man, NO ONE has the ability to have this kind of affect on me, how is it that someone who has less than 50% of my overall respect for does?
Back to the show for a second – If anything good came from this is that they played a song I wasn’t previously familiar with called Mama’s Fool that I am now obsessed with. I’ve must have played it 50 times at home since this show, which as a performance was totally kick ass.
Setlist –
Break of Dawn
I Wanna Live
Hang Tough
So Divine…
Heaven’s Trail (No Way Out)
Mama’s Fool
Into the Now
MP3
The Way It Is
What You Give
Signs
Love Song
Gettin’ Better
Modern Day Cowboy
Little Suzi (Ph.D. cover)
Cumin’ Atcha Live
Now here comes the real bullshit – Again, I had been acting a fool all night and not myself at all – I had actually drank two large 24 oz. cans of Heineken (which is alot for me) and about EIGHT SHOTS of some terrible liquor ridiculously called Fireball.
Me, shots – lots of them, on an empty stomach no less – who the fuck am I tonight?
So after the show we go upstairs to the after-party – and guess what? I drink more beer and do more shots which is nobody’s fault but my own.
I remember walking around the party (actually just following him & his non-stop movement/search to get laid) – when suddenly my stomach turned violent and anybody that’s ever been sick from being drunk can tell you – your body tell you that’s it, your fucked, your night is over and pray that the puke leaves as fast as it comes.
However the waiting for it is the worst – I went and sat down on one of the couch’s just fucking blind drunk. I was so fucked up so clearly just sitting there I was causing a spectacle, because people kept getting in my face asking if I was ok. Everyone except for RL Dude, who was nowhere to be found.
I couldn’t even speak – I would just nod and pray for death – which soon came.
I somehow made it to the bathroom and was violently puking for what seemed like hours. The next thing I remember, I’m leaning against the wall in one of the stalls when I hear them hustling everyone out of the party as it’s way past last call – I know that stall inspection is coming next and I can’t even open my eyes let alone stand on my own. If anyone even touches me I’m gonna puke more & sure enough, a bouncer enters my stall, shouts loudly that it’s time to go and then I start the violent puking all over again. I finally stop, he has no patience and pulls me out of there and throws me into the elevator. I lay down on the elevator floor and start puking all over it. He threatens that if I don’t get it together that I will be arrested – a real possibility that should have sobered me up, it didn’t.
Finally we get to street level, I’m apologizing and doing that crying-drunk thing – he tells me it’s ok and sends me on my way.
In hindsight he was pretty fair to me and I could have wound up in the drunk tank but how did he let someone in my condition free into the unknown of the Dallas night unassisted?
Somehow, just on instinct alone, as I could barely open my eyes, let alone walk, I make it to my car. Of course I can’t drive, so I climb into the back seat to sleep it off & hope I don’t get mugged, or pull a Bon Scott, or worse.
I wake up four hours later, having not been mugged, nor asphixiated on my own vomit thankfully, still (legally) unable to drive home, but against better judgement I went for it and made it home in one piece. It was not RL Dude’s fault that I decided to be so irresponsible and get so fucked up, but how did he just leave the party without knowing where I was or if I was ok? Especially after I had invited him. Bad times, maybe tomorrow will be better.
Motley Crue – July 16th – Gexa Energy Pavillion – Dallas, TX
In 1987, at the age of 13, my family set out for greener pastures by moving to a small town in Texas, a suburb of the Dallas/Fort Worth Area. I was no stranger to frequent moving, but I had just got settled into my first year of Junior High at a school that I actually liked, only to have to move again, start again at a new Jr. High and this time out of state.
A stroke of life-changing good fortune came my way that first week at school as on Meet the Teacher night, my mother and I were seated across from a then yet-unknown kindred spirit. Eager to make my tastes known as wonton 13 year olds are known to do, I was wearing my prized possession: My Motley Crue concert tee.
I had just seen the Girls, Girls, Girls Tour in my hometown from where we moved from in Little Rock, AR a few months prior.
The young man seated across from me, picks up on this and reaches for his wallet as a not-so-subtle vehicle to expose that where you would put your driver’s liscense (if he were old enough to have one) he had placed his membership card to the Motley Crue fan club. That was it, wrap it up, call it a night – we became inseperable & I’m extremely proud to say that 27 years later we are still as close as ever.
So obviously our tastes have evolved over that amount of time, and in spite of some seriously questionable performances they’ve turned in (namely singer Vince Neil) and other career choices, when they announced that this was to be their final tour, not going wasn’t even remotely an option.
Sadly, some insane traffic congestion caused us to miss opener Alice Cooper, which totally blows as I was really looking forward to seeing his set.
The reason for so much traffic was everyone was going to this show – I’ve seen the Crue in this very building three other times to attendance of 7k-10k, (the last time being over 10 years ago) there were easily twice that here tonight – and man you could feel it in the air too – that magic mix of bittersweet anticipation.
Having set the tone with playing So Long, Farewell from The Sound of Music over the PA, the Crue took the stage to 2008’s Saints of Los Angeles – the title track to what appears to be their final album
Now you can’t please everybody at these things with the setlist, however we couldn’t help but hope that this was going to be more than just a run of the greatest hits.
Hell, we would settle for just anything off their debut LP Too Fast For Love
I couldn’t possibly exxagerate the simultaneous euphoria we exhibited when unthinkably, they actually played On With the Show – and before we had a second to recover, the familiar sound of the opening riff to Too Fast For Love –
We screamed and embraced like two chics would that I think the people around us thought we were gay lovers haha –
Here’s why:
Somehow in almost 30 years of friendship Chris & I had never seen Crue together – the band that birthed our friendship.Yet during all of that time, we still reference that record weekly. I can’t say it any other way than that the solo to Merry-Go-Round on that record IS my friendship with Chris.
The first LP I ever bought with my own money was Too Fast For Love – After wearing out two cassette copies of Shout at the Devil, for my 10th birthday in March 1984, I took my birthday money to Discount Records & Tapes and bought it & its still one of my most prized possessions today –
My mom probably didn’t win any awards that year by letting someone so young purchase this with his birthday money but I thank her just the same.
Back then, they had a 30-day return gurantee – you can see mine still has the return expiration sticker on it.
We quote the now obscure home video Uncensored like scripture – it’s gems of Rock & Roll excess finding their way into our conversations daily.
The outro to it is On With the Show – while the credits role, they flash an inspirational open letter to the fans – If you’ve never seen it (& sadly chances are that you haven’t) though it’s only 30 mins long, if you were a poor 12 year old in 1986 like I was watching it 6 times a day, you lived in entire lifetime in that half hour.
The show started leaning heavily on their late 80s/early 90s output followed by a lengthy trip down memory lane by bassist Nikki Sixx, who told the story of the early days hanging out on the Strip so much, “We figured we might as well be in a band,”
Recalling their first practice with Neil on the mike. “I handed him the lyrics to ‘Live Wire,” Sixx recalled, triumphantly. “That day was Jan. 17, 1981.”
It would have been the perfect setup for Live Wire, but instead, oddly they powered through a fairly faithful version of the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy in the U.K.
Soon came Shout at the Devil – complete with the In the Beginning intro which featured Sixx shooting flames from a blowtorch attached to his bass while chanting along on the chorus into a microphone suspended from a flaming stand. As he remarked after that display of pyrotechnic glory, “I like lots of fire, man.”
Drummer Tommy Lee, always one to outdo himself year after year, had erected something he was staging for his solo that really has to be seen to be believed.
I remember on the Girls Tour when he first did the rotating drum riser high above the crowd and thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen, 28 years later he has advanced it to a level that defies description. A cynic would have a field day with this height of indulgence, but hey this is Motley Crue right?
After giving Mick Mars a chance to shine, they brought the show to a climax by eventually doing Live Wire, & Kickstart My Heart, that has that wonderful, reflective middle section which ended in the biggest, most outrageous pyrotechnic display that even the likes of KISS would be envious of.
They left the stage at that point, & while we were certain that an encore that would surely contain Home Sweet Home was imminent – we hadn’t looked over behind us to see that they had erected a tiny little stage right in the middle of the venue –
And that’s exactly how they sent us home, from a little stage , Lee starting the song on piano and switching to drums – the platform rising as the song progressed & lowering when it ended – Very touching/fitting/effective.
And when it was over, they strolled back through the aisles, as over the PA, Frank Sinatra sang, “And now, the end is near and so I face the final curtain.”
It was a bittersweet end to a concert that did a commendable of celebrating the legacy of Motley Crue with all four members still in a position to deliver.
From 1983-1987 they were the totality of my existence – providing the soundtrack to a lifetime & the constant beat of my most enduring friendship.
To our buddies Sixx, Vince, Mick & Tom – we thank you.
Setlist –
So Long, Farewell (Rodgers & Hammerstein song)
Saints of Los Angeles
Wild Side
Primal Scream
Same Ol’ Situation (S.O.S.)
Looks That Kill
On With the Show
Too Fast for Love
Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room (Brownsville Station cover) (w/ snippets of Gary Glitter’s Rock & Roll Part 2 as intro and outro)
Without You
Mutherfucker of the Year
Anarchy in the U.K. (Sex Pistols cover)
Dr. Feelgood
Shout at the Devil (w/ In the Beginning)
Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)
Live Wire
Too Young to Fall in Love
Girls, Girls, Girls
Kickstart My Heart
Encore:
Home Sweet Home (on B stage)
My Way (Frank Sinatra song)
Photos –
Roy Turner
Scott Newton
Andy Laudano
