Feelgood, Ph.D.

Last evening I indulged my more high brow artistic sensibilities and attended the Motley Crue "Carnival of Sins" concert.

Actually, "multimedia exhibition" would be more appropos, since interspersed throughout the concert were various videos (many with nudes), clips from a claymation movie "Disaster" (with the astute tagline, "In outer space no one can hear you fart") and the "Motley Crue Titty Cam." The last item was a participatory piece, with Tommy Lee, the band's percussionist, training the camera on various members of the audience, blurring the line between performer and audience.

This communality would turn spiritual. Late in the concert, after thanking the audience profusely, Lee crouched down and asked God to bless each and every Motley Crue fan. He then lowered his head for a final blessing. "God," he said, "if you're listening..." Lee clasped his hands together in earnest. "God..." He yelled: "God, please bless all the fucking titties across America!"

Lee's contributions to the night's performance extended beyond the musical and benedictory. He also brought purpose with a dedication. The night's performance, he announced mid-concert, was dedicated to "The King." Did he mean Martin Luther? Elvis perhaps? God? You could almost smell the anticipation, or at least the second-hand marijuana. After a dramatic pause, Lee raised a fist and suprised us with a clever pun: "Fuc-king!"

Lee would also add the daring acrobatics that has become his trademark—and has paved the way for artists like the Cirque du Soleil. Near the end, as the band rested backstage, Lee flew on a harness between two elevated platforms where he played percussive instruments to a pre-recorded electronic beat and the repeating refrain: "Let's get fucked." The refrain seemed to be his motto, as Lee imbibed both beer and Jaegermeister throughout the night (adding more thrilling danger to the acrobatics) and offered the latter to various audience members.

The band has followed a typical "VH1, Behind The Music" trajectory: explosive stardom leading to excess, leading to personal tragedy, followed by more excess, leading to crash and burn, followed by rehab, leading to failed solo endeavors, followed by failed attempts to replace solo-minded singer, and culminating in a sober and triumphant reunion. Well, thanks to Lee, the reunion was triumphant anyways. He might have benefited from an additional harness keeping him on the proverbial wagon, but his drumming was solid.

The Crue—and here it was the band's vocalist, Vince Neil, taking the lead—would also raise urgent cultural questions throughout the night:
-Are us motherfuckers ready to fucking rock and roll?
-Can Motley Crue get a "hell yeah"?
-Can they get a "hell motherfucking yeah"?
-Can the audience make some fucking noise?
The questions may not have been profound, but they were profane. The band's principal songwriter and bass player, Nikki Sixx, also asked variations of these questions in a similar style. The guitarist Mick Mars was the only member not to address the audience, but his reticence only added more gravitas to his musicianship and inspiring perserverence in the face of a degenerative spinal condition.

Above all, the night was about the music. The songs were loosely organized chronologically, with the first act drawing heavily from their eponymous debut and "Shout at the Devil" albums, and the second act from their albums "Girls, girls, girls" and "Dr. Feelgood." Songs from "Theater of Pain" were included in both, serving as a thematic bridge between the acts. A song I've already forgotten, introduced as "some new shit," was likely from the new album "Red, White, and Crue." Also in a patriotic theme, the encore was a U.S.A. version of "Anarchy in the U.K."

This finale was clearly ironic: anarchy was no part of the night's festivities. Everything was tightly orchestrated, following the rules of kick ass rock and roll. When the night was over, the audience peacefully and orderly walked, stumbled, or passed out over the shoulder of a less drunken fan to the bottle-strewn parking lot.

As exhorted earlier by the band and audience members who knew the lyrics, no one went away mad. They just went away.