When I started this blog about four years ago, I intended to, every so often, comment on the current state of Motley. That hasn't really happened but the band has kept touring & keeping their name in the public. Earlier this year [2014] they announced a Final Tour: All Bad Things Must Come To An End. They even cobbled together a song with the same title that got played a couple times but was quickly ditched. I've heard worse music.
The gimmick this go around is the band signed a cease & desist contract at a press conference to never tour again! It's about time! The band were so lucky to have the successful reunion in 2005 after the success of the 'The Dirt' autobiography earlier in the decade but since about 2007 they've been coming up with gimmicks & any old excuse to keep touring. And with the SAME setlist every year. And with Vince's voice becoming increasingly worse. And with more backing tapes & pyro to hide the band's actual abilities. Nikki just kinda talks now & doesn't care if it's true or if anyone has a memory or is even listening! It's been obvious for a while that the band doesn't like each other anymore & it's just a business agreement & they're cashing in while they can. There has been ZERO attempts to satisfy us life-long Crueheads in terms of B-sides being performed at shows (strictly Greatest Hits or the same B-sides for 10 years now) or any attention to their musical legacy (Shout At The Devil, a seminal album in the band's career, has a 30 year anniversary & NOTHING was done to celebrate it at all). Motley is not really a band anymore. All those generic Rock fans that sprung up in the early 1990s have carried through til now & populate the majority of the concert seats & supply the most set of ears to classic Rock Radio stations. These are the people Motley care about now. Us older, Crue-educated fans? We just know too much embarrassing stuff about their early days & we expect too much. Check out how amazing Metallica have handled their legacy & their relationship with their die-hard fans & then compare that to what Motley have done & it's very sad. Tommy has taken to not signing autographs, skipping the Meet and Greets & generally saying nothing onstage BUT has kept up the tradition of the drum solo spectacle by doing a stunt I remember him mentioning way back in the day: called the 'Cruecifly', Tommy & drum set travel over the crowd on an elaborate roller coaster track!
It's surreal to me to see this new, current footage of the Motleys still doing huge tours & stage shows in their 50 & 60s, in the years 2014-15. Walking the halls of The Sleaze Patrol Files, seeing these young wild men in their teens & 20s, ruling in the 1980s & creating such a legend, even back then, decades ago . . . & they're STILL performing?! The Final Tour is done for 2014 but the band promises to travel the globe in 2015 before calling it a touring day.
