Motley Crue Reunion already being reported in OZ. Nobody even bothered with Van Hagar

[Panamark]

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=38345

[Panamark]

Motley Crue takes to the road
13:54 AEDT Sat Feb 19 2005


AP - Rock music's biggest freak show is taking its show on the road.

And the bigger question for Motley Crue is whether the band known for its excesses (sex, drugs and fighting) can keep it together for a year on tour.

"This tour could last a week. It could last a year. I just don't know," drummer Tommy Lee recently told The Associated Press. "But it definitely brings a smile to my face. You know, the danger part of it, the whether these guys are going to make it a month question."

The band that gained its rock foothold in the 1980s as a glam metal band opened the US leg of the Red, White & Crue Tour 2005 ... Better Live Than Dead in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The tour follows the release of Red, White & Crue, a greatest hits album that includes three new songs.

Motley Crue has reportedly auditioned midgets, contortionists and strange animals as part of the stage production.

"It's a travelling freak show. We've always been called that and we said 'Why don't we take that and take it to the next level'," said bassist Nikki Sixx.




Motley Crue has always pushed "the level".

For those who haven't seen the band's infamous episode of the US VH1 cable TV's Behind The Music, which featured the band's sordid tale of success, here's a quick recap:

The band was founded in 1981 when Sixx met Lee. The two answered an ad placed by guitarist Mick Mars (who Sixx described as Cousin Itt from The Addams Family) looking for bandmates. Then they were joined by singer Vince Neil. They quickly lit up the Los Angeles club scene and recorded an album, which was released on an independent label. A short time later they were signed by Elektra and released 1983's Shout at the Devil and 1985's Theatre of Pain. But it was 1987's Girls, Girls, Girls and 1989's Dr Feelgood, which debuted at No 1, that put the band at the top.

Along the way, they were using drugs and drinking and having lots of sex. Neil got into a drunken driving accident that killed Hanoi Rocks drummer Razzle. Sixx overdosed on heroin, "dying" before returning to life. Lee married Pamela Anderson and made an infamous sex tape. Mars drank and did drugs.

By the 1990s, the band was falling apart. Neil left (or was fired, depending on who tells the story) the band in 1992. He then reunited with the band for 1997's Generation Swine. Then Lee left in the late 1990s.

The band regrouped a few months ago after Sixx wrote some songs and asked Neil if he would sing them.

But the band says they noticed a resurgence in interest in Motley Crue several years earlier.

Neil said he was at a mall once when he saw three teenagers wearing old Motley Crue concert shirts: "I was like 'How do they know us? Where did they get these T-shirts?'"

Lee also had a similar experience, thinking: "That kid was two when we were playing."

Sixx is a little more philosophical.

"There's this thing that happens if you stick around long enough," he said. "One day, you're a huge band. The next day, you're off the map. ...Then one day, all of the sudden, it happens. Some 15-year-old kid goes 'I heard this song.' The next thing you know, you're doing a reunion tour."

Tickets for the tour went on sale in December with some venues selling out in hours.

So what is it about Motley Crue that two decades later seems to grab such fan loyalty?

Part of it is the music and part of it is that most of the band members have continued to be in the spotlight, says Jim Richards, regional vice-president of programming for Clear Channel.

"They are celebrities individually, above and beyond their collective band status," he said.

Neil and Lee have made forays into reality television: Neil on the WB's The Surreal Life and Lee with a new NBC reality show set to air this northern summer. Sixx, Neil and Lee have continued with solo projects.

But Richards says more than that - there may be a morbid curiosity.

"A curiosity of watching a train wreck. Can they keep it together for a year?" he said. "What sports book in Vegas is accepting bets on this?"

When told of the "morbid curiosity" factor, the members of Motley Crue laugh. But there is little disagreement.

When asked whether the band plans to follow up the tour with a full-length studio album, Neil doesn't have an answer.

"We're really not saying," he says. "We're just going to watch and see and see what kind of happens," he said.

Sixx draws a comparison between a brand new Lexus sedan ("nice, safe, secure," he says) and a beat-up hot rod. Motley Crue, of course, is the hot rod. He points out that most hot rods blow a motor.

"If the motor blows, then the motor blows. But I'd rather be standing on the side of the road with a blown motor than riding in the Lexus," he says.

Lee compares it to a failed marriage.

[Panamark]

Didnt this tour start like this week ???
Already Ive read about this in the major Papers and now there are articles on our main news websites. Within a week of the tour.

Van Hagar got nothing. The Van Hagar reunion announcement as
far as us Aussies go comprised of Melodicrock or the Van Halen
websites. No mainstrem media jumped all over it like this.

You know why, COS ITS THE ORIGINAL FUCKING LINEUP !

Hello, EVH and AVH, Im looking in your direction ! :D

[Flash Bastard]

Vince knows a thing or two about failed marriages.

[Brett]

You want to see Motley Crue? Why? Talk about being done, isn't Mick Mars not even touring with them right?

[Fairwrning]

uumm...yes..mick is touring...

[POJO_Risin]

My god...if Mick doesn't have fucking Parkinson's...or some shit though...and it's only a matter of time before fucking Lee and Neil kill each other...

Hell...I'd rather see Motley Crue with two dead guys...a guy with Parkinsons...flame throwing midgits and a bunch of circus freeks flying around...

then Van Hagar any day of the week...

[Panamark]

Mick has a degenerative bone disease.

Read review of first night here:

http://www.rotharmy.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17401

I agree, I would rather watch the original members of a band anytime,
instead of a second rate stand in. Mick never did move around a lot
on stage, so as long as he is upright and can play, he's pretty much doing as he has always done.

This will slaughter Van Hagar 2004.

[DLRDUDE]

Just love the personal attacks against the Crue...Bravo! I see it hasn't changed much here in the last couple months. Red, White and Crue...A thing of beauty!!!!!!!!!!

[Panamark]

Its not all bad

[stringfelowhawk]

I'm rather disappointed in these new "tunes"! Why are they trying to sound like the last bout of dysentery Metallica shit out a few years ago? That was so fucking horrible I'll never buy another Metallica album as long as I live. I'm not buying this turd either. FUCK ALL THESE STUPID ASSHOLES THAT ARE AFRAID TO BE THEMSELVES BECAUSE THEY'RE TO BUSY COPYING THAT COW PATTY NU METAL SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I heard one of them on the radio the other day and the only reason I knew it was the Crue is because I recognized the voice. The music was fucking terrible. I thought solos were coming back and drop D was going away but I may have been mistaken and that is disheartening to me. I so want something to come out that makes me interested again. God, I miss music. The only thing I've bought recently were George Jones greatest hits and Silvertide's "Show And Tell".