Motley Crue Bring Arena Rock Back to San Francisco

Posted on Jun 16th 2011 5:32AM by Benjy Eisen Comments

Motley Crue Victor Chavez, WireImage

At the Bill Graham Civic Center in downtown San Francisco on Wednesday night, it was Motley Crue for the people. "We've been together for 30 f---ing years," shouted frontman Vince Neil, proudly. "We haven't f---ing finished yet; we're having the greatest f---ing time, man. Tonight, we're playing your favorite f---ing songs because we feel like we're your f---ing band!"

Apart from the expletives, Neil was referring to the fact that the band let the fans decide the setlist for this tour via an online vote. And while the setlist is, likewise, filled with all the obvious crowd pleasers ('Girls, Girls, Girls,' 'Wild Side,' 'Home Sweet Home'), that's not all the band is doing for fans during this outing. During Tommy Lee's drum solo, his whole drum riser turns into a virtual thrill ride as it goes around a 360 degree loop, upside down and round and round, but Lee doesn't go it alone; he picks a fan from the audience to join him on the custom-made contraption.

"My favorite part of this is that I get to pick out a victim every night," he told the crowd, gleefully. Between all the pyrotechnics, the "back-up strippers" and the anthemic fist pumpers, Motley Crue is staging the type of big rock show that nobody really does anymore. It's from a time when rock 'n' roll was supposed to just be fun and when concerts were a good reason to get a little rowdy.

Granted, the band did have a few modern elements in the mix -- Lee's drum solo included dubstep samples, 'Don't Go Away Mad' was remade into a mash-up with Cee Lo Green's 'F--- You' (which Green himself performed with the band a night earlier, in Los Angeles). But, overall, Motley Crue delivered something that's been missing from live music for quite some time -- a true arena rock show packed with all the right punches.

Watch Tommy Lee's 360 Drum Mobile in Action