Mötley Crüe is going out with the biggest bang possible. All jokes aside.At the US band’s final-ever London show, there are more fireworks than Independence Day or the UK’s Bonfire Night. There are walls of flame, tickertape and Nikki Sixx’s flame-throwing bass guitar. He says it’s like holding on to a 100-pound dragon. There are also lasers and levitating crane platforms that transport both Sixx and singer Vince Neil over the heads of the audience.And of course there is a roller-coaster ride for drummer Tommy Lee. To strains of the most over-the-top “Carmina Burana” imaginable, he and his entire drum kit move on rails some 50 feet above the crowd. They then get turned upside down, with Lee fearlessly bashing throughout.If you are looking for the greatest rock show on earth visually, you’ve probably got it right there.In rock, there are some musicians who largely concentrate on the music. (Elvis Costello famously said “it’s what’s on the record that counts, it’s all that ever counts.”) There are others who know their chops but take everything to the limit on stage. We know where these guys stand.Mötley has been touring with special guest Alice Cooper, whose performance still has a hangman’s noose, electric chair and snakes. He’s been doing rock shock forever, before the Mötleys started in 1981 indeed – and after they finish, 2015.We cannot overlook “the elephant in the room,” as Sixx put it in a speech from the stage: this is the final fling, a pretty unique selling point. Of course the words “final tour” will strike a note of skepticism when so many bands change their minds – Kiss, the Who, Status Quo. But the Crüe is definite. Its members have signed a legal deal saying this is the end. The “All Bad Things Must Come to an End” tour wraps on December 31 at Staples Center in the musicians’ home town, Los Angeles.The gig kicks off as it intends to go on, with a little sample of “The Sound of Music.” The “so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye” soon yields to the greatest hits, starting with “Girls, Girls, Girls.” With dancing girls of course, d’uh.Every rock cliché is done, overdone and burned to a cinder. The Mötleys have often been trashed by some critics. The lifestyle of excess-all-areas (girls, booze, drugs) has also fueled misunderstandings and jealousy. The attacks are really unfair when Kiss has survived, cartoon-character makeup or no, same with Alice Cooper; and above all, heck, these guys are loved by their followers. You just had to look around at the joy of many at the SSE Wembley Arena.Mötley is tight, with basic riffs punched out and songs ending second-perfect with gong sound effects or yet another belch from the flamethrowers. They cover “Anarchy in the UK” as well as the Glitter Band’s “Rock and Roll,” medleying that into “Smokin’ in the Boys Room.” Then “Kickstart My Heart” shows they are serious. It’s delivered in a luxury length – that memory of the day when an overdosed Sixx was declared clinically dead before resuscitation.He tugs on the heartstrings with a speech about how people should hold onto their dreams and never take no for an answer. He says the band has never looked back, from the LA Troubadour to here. (For sure, he is looking forward with his impressive new group Sixx:A.M. and a syndicated radio show.)The finale has the quartet popping up in the center of the arena. They sign off by saying “we’ll miss you guys.”On the long subway ride back to central London, the mass ranks of the faithful enthuse as much about the showmanship as the rock. Mötley may be done, but their tee-shirts also namecheck Van Halen, Ratt, Def Leppard, Metallica, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Kiss, Scorpions, AC/DC, Rainbow and – yes – Sixx:A.M. While some of the concert-goers thought other groups had good songs too, there was much agreement that it was a spectacle to upstage Blackpool Pleasure Beach or Kings Island. If the fans are always right, well, you can’t argue with that.The Mötley Crüe tour continues to December 31, moving through mainland Europe, Middle East and US.Information http://www.Mötley.com/tour/
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