Rock News
REVIEW & PHOTOS: Motley Crue, Def Leppard and Steel Panther Live In The UK Post by: Steve Mascord 16 December, 2011 - 12:15 PM
Our fearless rock correspondent Steve Mascord gives us the lowdown on Motley Crue, Def Leppard and Steel Panther's epic United Kingdom tour.
When Tommy Lee told this writer that touring with joke-metal masters Steel Panther was “f***ing weird”, he was derided on his own facebook page as being out of touch, humourless and even a bit scared. After all, the Panther do have a drummer called Stix Zadinia and Tommy Lee is known for... you get the drift.
But after attending all six shows in the UK, headlined by Def Leppard, Triple M can report that Tommy was right. It was weird. If there was such a thing as an irony-o-meter, it would have been spinning wildly as this the hair metal tour of the year passed through Birmingham, Nottingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield and London this month. Even in the crowd, some guys wore skin tight white leather pants with cowboy boots in all seriousness while others in leopard print spandex were clearly taking the piss – we think.
The thing about Steel Panther, who will tour ditties like “It Won’t Suck Itself”, “Just Like Tiger Woods” and “Death To All But Metal” in Australia early next year for the Soundwave Festival, is that they can still get girls to flash their tits because it’s all in the name of parody, right? In Sheffield, their onstage “guest” didn’t bother to put them away for the entire time she was up there.
But when Motley Crue singer Vince Neil gestures with his fingers and says “this means you like pussy” an hour after Michael Starr spoke about the subject in graphic detail, repeatedly, it seems a bit too serious. At least Neil worked out between Birmingham and Nottingham that “f*** yeah” is not “one magic word”, it’s two.
Lee need not have concerned himself with Crue and Leppard fans not liking Steel Panther. In Manchester and London, the arenas were almost full for the upstarts’ 6.30pm set and by the end of the tour, Steel Panther were going very close to blowing the “serious” bands off the stage – even if Starr politely made fun of Bret Michaels being overweight instead of his normal target, Neil himself.
Night after night, this was a cock rocker’s wet dream – Lee’s rollercoaster drum kit, Phil Collen’s shirtless axework (“that guy takes lots of creatin,” SP’s Satchel observed) and Lexxi Foxx’s glittering hand-mirror all in one pelvic thrusting evening of supersonic entertainment.
Mick Mars blew up his amp. In London, Neil was handed his guitar before “Same Old Situation” by two strippers with whom he watched a few Leppards songs from the side of the stage before the three of them retired to his dressingroom. Collen and Nikki Sixx (Lexxi Foxx, Nikki Sixx, geddit?) each had “Happy Birthday To You” performed in their honour.
In Nottingham, Spinal Tap-style, the smoke at the beginning of the Crue’s set hung around so long you couldn’t see the band until the fourth song. In Glasgow, right next to me, a drunken yob causing trouble was summarily knocked out cold. When the bouncers finally brought him round, they showed him very little sympathy...
Probably the only lowlight, aside from Neil singing every third word as he is wont to do, was Def Leppard marking their return to home town Sheffield by playing limp pop song “Slang” when “Let it Go” – included the following night at Wembley Arena – would have been far more fitting. Oh, and SP only did “The Shocker” once....
But the question left hanging over Heathrow as Motley Crue and Steel Panther jetting back to LA yesterday was: as Steel Panther get bigger and bigger, how can the real survivors of the big haired 80s continue to play with straight faces?
