Had a good night out last night at the MEN in Manchester. Mötley Crüe are in their middle of their farewell tour and their main support act is Alice Cooper.
Surprisingly, I’ve never been to an Alice Cooper show before – and I don’t really know why. I like his music, and I certainly like him as a person (he has his own radio show over on Planet Rock). I’d been waiting for him to tour, and the alert came through that he was supporting Mötley Crüe… well, the rest is history, as they say.
Actually, thinking a bit more about why I haven’t seen him before, I think it was hearing more of his music on Planet Rock that did it. I realised there was a lot more to him than I had always believed.
He has a brilliant collection of musicians with him at the moment, but even at 67 Alice can still mix it pretty well. As he says on his radio show, he doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, and he keeps fit – and you can see how that works for him.
Since his show was shorter than I guess it would have been had he been headlining, he basically played most of his major hits (of which there are many), including No More Mr Nice Guy, I’m Eighteen, Billion Dollar Babies, Poison, Feed My Frankenstein, and of course School’s Out. The whole show was a huge pantomime, with Alice donning various costumes and using various props, such as a guillotine, where he is beheaded; and a Frankenstein monster.
It was a really entertaining show, and I wish it could have gone on for longer.
At this point, I should mention that there was another support band on first, called The One Hundred. God help us if this is the future of rock music – although this is obviously a personal view, they were bloody awful. If nothing else, they were totally out of place alongside the likes of Alice Cooper and Mötley Crüe.
It’s a trend these days that concerts have three acts – the main band and two support acts. Although I have seen some good support bands, as the number of such shows increases, so does the number of mediocre support acts I have endured. In some cases, all these bands do is reduce the amount of time the headliners are on stage for, and I’m not sure I like that. Mind you, it can go the other way, too. Earlier this year I went to see Black Star Riders (my primary reason for going) at Rock City, and they were supporting Europe (my tertiary reason for going). Supporting both were The Amorettes (my secondary reason for going). We left before Europe had finished – they were so tame.
Anyway, I digress. Mötley Crüe came on and did a brilliant set. All the old favourites from their 30-year career were there., such as Girls, Girls, Girls, Same Ol’ Situation, Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room, Shout at the Devil and so on.
As I said at the start, this is their farewell tour, and much has been said of the legal contract they have all signed which says after this there will be no more Mötley Crüe. It’s funny how time affects different people in different ways. Alice Cooper is nearly 70 and looks fit as a fiddle. Mick Mars – Mötley Crüe’s guitarist – is either 60 or 64, and the poor guy looks much older due to his ongoing health issues, which mean that he can’t bend his back properly and is in pain much of the time. Tommy Lee almost didn’t make these UK gigs due to tendonitis flaring up a few weeks ago while the tour was still in the US.
In spite of all that, they gave the fans a night to remember.