Motley Crue

Well, My Other Concert Buddy and I are going to be sitting 13th row at the Crue concert in Des Moines tonight. I've seen the Crue without Vince and Vince without the Crue, so this will be a treat. I've seen a DVD of the opening night and this looks like a great show. I'm pretty stoked about it.

I saw Motley Crue headline at Sandstone Amphitheater in KC back when they toured with John Corabi singing. Type O Negative really sounded horrible as the first opener and then King's X almost stole the show. Motley had a great set, but I noticed when they put the lights on for the backward Nazi symbol that people were walking out. The place got scarce FAST! I thought it was a great show, though, and really had a good time. I went with free tickets thanks to 98.9 The Rock.

I saw Vince open for Poison in KC and Omaha. He was so energetic at both shows. In Omaha, though, the power got cut twice on him. At least he was in good spirits about it. He doesn't sing every word of the songs, as everyone knows, but he was on pitch and very fun to watch. I wish that in Omaha he would have performed some of his own stuff. I really like his first solo CD and the second one has some great tunes, too.

I love hitting concerts. Live music is unbeatable. I'm not into the industrialized sound many groups use or the prefab tapes pop artists use. Just give me a Les Paul plugged into a Marshall stack, a rock steady bottom end bass, and a drummer who knows how to fire the cannons and I'm in paradise. There is nothing that beats the raw sound and power of hard rock music. You can add the occasional sax and piano for color. Make sure all the players can sing, too. This is the foundation for any good band.

I used to be in several bands in the late 80's up through about '96. My favorite and longest running band was Rat Race. We had a classically trained guitarist, a 5 string bass player, and a drummer that got kudos from Rick Derringer's drummer. As with any band, you occasionally have to hire replacements for gigs, but that was our steady lineup and we ruled. We played mostly covers so that we could gig most every weekend and a few week nights. I booked the band as often as our agent did sight unseen. It was great packing places in Columbia, MO, like Mixxers and in Hutchinson, KS, at Gambler's. We had some very steady gigs and always got a great reaction. There were the occasional nights when 10 people showed up, but that was rare and usually due to special circumstances like the blizzard in the Ozarks. We played some of the same stages as Night Ranger (JC's in Olathe, KS) and Black Oak Arkansas (some stage in Nebraska).

Rat Race was a very tight band. We were the only band I know of in KC at that time that could pull of playing Purple Rain in Knob Town at the Crossing. That was a very tough biker bar. We were one of the few bands that could play there without a fight breaking out, too.

Oh, the memories! It makes me wish that I could put another band together in Des Moines, but I think I'm just getting too old for it now. I used to be in such great shape, except my knees. I did so much running around that I would walk off stage in between sets with swollen knees, but as soon as the music kicked back in, I felt no pain.

At least I can live vicariously through seeing other live acts. Feel free to share your concert memories or share your memories of performing, too! I will be putting up more as this blog progresses.