December 2011… Feat: Tyketto/Wrathchild/Def Leppard/Motley Crue/Steel Panther/ Dr. & The Medics/Dawn Trader/Thunder/Hell…
December 8th… Def Leppard + Motley Crue + Steel Panther (Nottingham Arena)… First off let’s get one thing clear, arena gigs are not my cup of tea however on this occasion I’ve made an exception and upon arrival at the venue proceed to bump into pretty much everyone I know which is loads of fun... Crue and Leppard, not an obvious alliance (in the words of Vince Neil… ‘ Crazy shit man’) but these days I recon neither band can sell out an arena tour on their own so by attracting two sets of fans and like yours truly, fans of both bands a sell out is guaranteed.
First up is Steel Panther, what can I say about this lot? A cabaret act? A parody band? A tongue in cheek outfit? Well, having laughed at their one joke (a bad one at that) the rest of their act was a travesty, thing is it’s all been done before (Spinal Tap, Bad News, Badaxe, The Macc Lads) one album, one tour, take the money and run, fine but I’ve heard Panther have released a second album, incredulous! Like the drummers Nome de plume, Styx Zardinia Steel Panther are definitely shafting the punters and seemingly getting away with it, hay ho.
On with the show and Motley Cure take to the stage, I’m almost deafened by the noise and that’s just the ladies in the crowd screaming at Nikki Sixx. Crue play a predictable but enjoyable set of old favourites with star of the show Tommy Lee playing piano and riding his drum kit around a roller coaster loop and at one point when left on his own on stage and running out of things to say he offered to take his clothes off… ‘You’ve all seen it before’ he quips. His fellow Crue are sadly not as entertaining and seem to be playing it all by numbers.
Although tonight is a double headlining show some one has to go on last. Def Leppard sadly fail to pull this off, they have a vast back catalogue of songs and thirty plus years of experience which somehow has deserted them in their hour of need. Playing a lack lustre set of boring songs Leppard fall short of their predecessors on the stage, Sweet’s ‘Action’ being covered badly is just one low point, with a hand full of good songs ‘let it go’, ‘Armageddon it’, ‘animal’ and ‘photograph’ being surrounded by a bucket load of tedious numbers the entire evening ended in anticlimax, Motely Crue should have gone on last but over all I had a whale of a time at this social event of the year… GD
