Dogmatic

Last night was Mötley Crüe’s first Melbourne concert at Vodafone Arena - the band is also scheduled for an encore performance at the much smaller Palais Theatre in St.Kilda tonight. Your’s truly was there last night and will be going for a repeat performance tonight. God, my ears will be shot to hell this week that is for sure. It doesn’t help when the support act is Mötorhead. (who woulda thunk seeing the two bands with umlauts in their logo on the same night?) Even tho Mötley have been to Australia twice before - this was the first time I got to see them courtesy of my girlfriend who is one of the biggest Crüe fans out there. Having been a fan myself since 1981 (I distinctly remember buying their first album for the princely sum of $6.50 to this day) I wasn’t going to miss out seeing them this time.

We got to the arena early enough to catch opening band The Casanovas tearing it up. I thought they were great and they got a favorable response from the enclosed throng. I made a mental note to check out more of their stuff as I really enjoyed their performance.

Now… on to Mötorhead who I had seen twice before (many, many moons ago in 1984!) My memories of those gigs were that I firmly believe to this day that I suffered permanent ear damage as a result of those shows. They were loud back then, they were even louder now. God! THEY ARE LOUD! When metal icon Lemmy asked the crowd “Is it loud enough for ya?”, most of the crowd laughed back at his quip. The veterans pulled in a blistering set of classic ‘Head tunes and I for one was grateful for being able to purchase a new Mötorhead tee which I haven’t had since the glory days of my headbanging youth!

Mötley Crüe hit the stage a little after 9pm in full bombastic glory. Blasting out an awesome version of 1982’s ‘Shout At The Devil’ amidst a wall of smoke, the entire backline of amps engulfed in flames and 10ft pillars of fire shooting upwards on the giant Circus tent that makes up the band’s stage-set. They looked amazing they sounded even better.

Blasting their way through a 2 hour set consisting of many of the band’s hit singles as well as some gems from the band’s hey-day. The band were lucky to be playing in-front of an incredibly parochial crowd which just added to the blistering performance on and off the stage. Featuring clowns, circus-midgets, fire-breathing strippers an amazing pyrotechnics and light show - the band could do no wrong.

It was a classic big rock show with all the bells and whistles and then some.

Looking forward to seeing the more intimate and cut-back show tonight.