His set leaned heavily on classic Angels material delivered with plenty of fire and authenticity, while new track “Dr Jones” showed that he’s still moving forward. Awesome.
If anyone was bummed out that this tour featured the Bret Michaels Band rather than Michaels’ day job – Poison – they put their miffedness aside by the time Michaels launched into his set. Two covers, a bout of laryngitis and an 8-minute drum solo aside, Michaels’ 50-minute set of Poison material was delivered with plenty of rockworthy energy – including Talk Dirty To Me, Fallen Angel, Look What The Cat Dragged In, Unskinny Bop (with a painfully, painfully long intro – dude, you could have given us another song instead!) and of course Nothin’ But A Good Time. And Michaels promised to bring Poison back next year!
What can you say about Motley Crue? Vulgarity, aggression, spit, snot, buckets of blood – and that’s just bass player Nikki Sixx. The set was solid and hit-packed. Livewire, Girls, Girls, Girls, Shout At The Devil, Dr Feelgood, Home Sweet Home, Kickstart My Heart – they were all there and more. Sure, Vince Neil still drops a few words here and Mick Mars’s movement is restricted by a painful bone disease, but Crue is built for sold-out arenas and they delivered all the fireworks and flash bombs, both literal and figurative, that you could hope for. Oh and drummer Tommy Lee’s big gimmick on this tour – a circular track which his drum kit rides around on during his epic solo – was incredible. I think a few people around me who didn’t know about it beforehand did a little wee when they saw it go upside down while Lee played. And they lost it when an audience member was picked to ride on the kit too.
BY PETER HODGSON
