Motley Crue – Carnival of Sins 2005
Here’s what rock bands are missing today: naked fire-eating trapeze girls; multi-coloured flame throwers and pyrotechnics; huge light shows; midgets. Fortunately, Motley Crue were not lacking in any of these things at the Carnival of Sins show at Claremont Showgrounds in Perth last Saturday. It was pure rock and roll, the most fun I’ve had at a gig for ages.
Firstly, there were more bogans at the venue then I have EVER seen in one place in my entire life. An interesting touch was the mini-skirted FM-boot-wearing cigarette-vending chicks – that’s not something you see at a gig these days, but that’s just a reflection on the punters. Old-timers! For a change I felt young, unlike Rock-it where we’re ancient.
We got there during the Living End’s set. Towards the end, they started noodling around with AC/DC riffs, to a massive crowd response. Judge the crowd, then mess with them. Cool.
Next was Motorhead, on a smaller stage to the side for some reason. Lemmy can’t sing for shit and all their songs are the same anyway, but they were totally awesome.
Finally, the moment I’ve been waiting for since 1989 at least: the Crue. Vince is old and has trouble getting the lyrics out. Mick Mars is barely hanging onto life, although he still has the chops. Nikki is cute, spiky and very energetic, and Tommy Lee… well, he’s the only one who survived the 80’s and I won’t gush, but goddamn.
It’s a shame they couldn’t bring the full stage show to Perth (we just don’t have any appropriately-sized concert venues) so I’ll have to buy the DVD to see what we missed.
Rating: 50-fucking-million out of 10.