Mötley Crüe desperately wants some of your Canadian small-town money

tommylee

The rock ‘n’ roll circus that is Mötley Crüe rolled through Winnipeg last night. As long-running, somewhat tired sideshows generally go, it was an entertaining evening, filled with dancing girls, roller coasters, and plenty of flashing lights and pyrotechnics. But for a band that has billed itself as the “most notorious” and “dangerous” band in rock ‘n’ roll, it was a pretty tame affair.

It was “tame” in that the lines at the Tim Horton’s outlets in the MTS Centre were longer than the lines for beer. There were no screaming packs of youth gone wild on crank and dripping bodily fluids. In fact, the bulk of the audience was made up of aging rockers with thinning hair and fading tattoos. The only drugs they were doing, if any, were likely Cialis. Far from a full house, there were whole sections that were closed off entirely. And nobody bothered to rush the stage.

For a band that was at one point on top of the world to now be booking milk-runs through Canada’s backwoods — the tour includes stops in Estevan, Abbotsford and my hometown of Dawson Creek — is humbling, at best. Sure, the band still kicks out the jams and conducts itself as though they are “forever fourteen,” which is hella sweet. Maybe it is better to burn out than fade away, as the old adage goes. But if you’re going to take your time fading away, you might as well pack in whatever crowds you can and make a shit-ton of cash.

The one thing that hasn’t diminished about the Crüe, though, is the level of Trashiness they embody. Their official merchandise is among the ugliest shit this side of ICP. Their current tour was dubbed “Sex: The Tour,” and one of the newer tunes they performed was called “Motherfucker of the Year.” The crowd itself was mostly Trash, too, all done up in jeans and leather and slightly tipsy on a Tuesday evening.

All in all it was a good little time. A little sad, in that giants who once loomed so large when MTV was King are now clearly just creepy old men, not at all unlike your hard-partying Uncle Don. Only difference is they have better stories to tell.

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