So the long advertised and hyped Stadium Tour featuring Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett is finally happening this Spring/Summer after several postponements due to the COVID pandemic. The average ticket price seems to be around $150 per ticket in most places. Now, to be clear the average tickets mostly seem to be in the seats where you can probably hear the concert better than you can see it, but I guess the average price of $37.50 per band isn’t terrible. However, the ticket price goes up considerably after that. Sure, some of the seats have been bought and are being sold by resellers, but it’s also the reality of getting good tickets these days to a popular event. With some tickets selling for over $4,000 near the stage, V.I.P. tickets are also around $1,000 and up, you’d expect a spectacular performance for that price.
So that’s the big question… Will this be a spectacular performance?
So let’s be honest…Vince Neil has a history of performing live in a manner that clearly isn’t up to the par set by the recorded studio songs on Motley Crue’s albums. In some of his live performances, he has completely skipped words and has seemed to struggle to keep up with the tempo of the songs. He’s often sounded winded after a few songs and at least to my ears, he sometimes sounds like he’s slurring the words or running them all together in an unintelligible massive vowel movement.
For anyone who thinks I’m writing this to bash Vince or Motley Crue, you’d be completely wrong. Growing up in the 80s Motley Crue was always one of my favorite bands. Friends and high school classmates all wore Motley Crue shirts and treated them as if they were the second coming of the almighty Led Zeppelin for our generation. And for many fans, they absolutely were and still are.
I want Motley Crue to impress and basically blow away the fans who come to see them on this tour. Many people will pay for tickets regardless of how the performance goes and they will have a night of nostalgia to remember for years to come. I know for me, seeing these bands live is almost a trip back in time, a time when things were simpler and we were all wishing we were rock stars up on the stage too.
So let’s all keep in mind that this tour was originally scheduled to start 2 years ago in 2020. So that means that the performers will have had almost 2 full years to prepare and rehearse for these shows. For that kind of money, I expect a stellar performance. No, I don’t expect any of the singers or performers to sound like they did in the 80s. I get it. We all age. No one should expect total perfection. However, if you’re career is based on being a professional musician or singer, I would expect there to be reasonable attempts at practicing and striving to give the best performance that you can for the fans who pay their hard-earned money to walk down memory lane with you one more time. Recent live performances by singers who are older now, like Dee Snider, Rob Halford, Joe Elliott, Alice Cooper, the late Ronnie James Dio, and even Ozzy Osbourne have shown that they can still deliver decent vocals in later years.
So, will Vince Neil get it together and impress the fans or will he give a lackluster performance?
The truth is, no one knows for sure until the first concert date happens. In the past fans have been very vocal and unforgiving when Vince appears to struggle his way through songs. YouTube is full of videos of Vince performing both solo and with the Crue with crazy captions trying to match what it sounds like he’s singing. So as the big day approaches, Vince and Motley Crue both have a chance to blast the naysayers and deliver a performance that truly delivers the goods. Those with fond memories of Motley Crue and their legacy in rock may get the best concert they’ve ever seen or possibly the worst…it all depends on which Vince shows up.
