Las Vegas Weekly

Observations on Motley Crue, Poison and New York Dolls

At the Red Rock Amphitheatre on June 18

Vince Neil rocks Red Rock.

Photo: Bill Hughes

New York Dolls

• The glam-rock style appears especially silly in the sunlight, although at least there’s a legitimate reason for the rock-star affectation of wearing sunglasses all the time.

• David Johansen kind of looks like a cross between Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger. That can’t be healthy.

• Before the band members can even put their instruments down at the end of the set, guitarist Sylvain Sylvain takes the mic and insists on an encore. The audience doesn’t seem to care.

Poison

• The Bret Michaels Super Cruise advertised via a prerecorded message before the band hits the stage sounds like a special kind of torture.

• With his flannel shirt and short conservative haircut, bassist Bobby Dall looks like he missed the glam-rock memo.

• You’d think that after 25 years, C.C. DeVille would have learned how to play a decent guitar solo. On the plus side, his hair looks awesome.

• If you thought Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re an American Band” couldn’t be totally butchered, Poison is here to prove you wrong.

• The only thing less essential than a C.C. DeVille guitar solo is a Rikki Rockett drum solo.

Mötley Crüe

• Vince Neil: Still mangling the words to his own songs, when he bothers to sing them.

• Tommy Lee’s frustration with a malfunctioning piano during “Home Sweet Home” is entirely justified, but it’s not the piano’s fault that everything else about the song also sounds terrible.

• I do appreciate Lee’s admonishment to the crowd to put down the cell phones. “How do you watch a show through a tiny screen?” I wonder the same thing, Tommy.

• We can officially retire Cee-Lo Green’s “Fuck You” now that the Crue has inserted part of it into “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away).”

• My companion bails right after Lee’s ridiculous drum solo (complete with his kit doing a 360-degree loop like a roller coaster). If only I could do the same.