Beginning in the eighties, Motley Crue emerged amongst the heavy metal “hair bands� of the time. Combining rock and roll with high hair and a bad attitude they had a large following in the US and reasonable album sales throughout the rest of the world. Personally, I would class Motley Crue as a cross between Bon Jovi and Guns‘n Roses, but I am sure Crue fans would disagree.

Having not seen or heard of Motley Crue for some time, I sat down to view this disc with very few expectations. I could remember them from the eighties as the self proclaimed bad boys of rock, but struggled to remember any of their hits. The first thing I noticed was the quality of the presentation. The picture looked very sharp, the stage looked great and the band looked as good as they ever did (it is debatable as to how good they used to look). Secondly I looked for Tommy Lee (yes, he of Heather Locklear and Pamela Anderson fame) on the drums but somehow he looked different, he now had blonde hair and in fact looked female. Then I discovered that Randy Castillo was filling in for Tommy during the Maximum Rock Tour while Tommy worked on other projects. So why did Randy look like a female? Well it transpires that Randy had been taken ill and Samantha Maloney from Hole was filling in for him for a few weeks.

I have since discovered that Randy sadly passed away in March this year. Although he is not in the concert, he is featured extensively in the extras and on the latest album New Tattoo.

Performed in Salt Lake City with not a Mormon in site, this is a great show. Kicking off with Kickstart My Heart, the band look and sound terrific. Vince Neil on vocals doesn’t miss a beat. His voice still sounds as good as it did back then. Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx also sound better than ever and the whole band seems to really want to be there, doing what they do best. The audience appears to be made up of mostly die-hard fans and they have the time of their lives.

Track Listing:

Combining all their hits with a few songs off their most recent album, New Tattoo, this is a very enjoyable show. Running for 76:06 and covering many songs, there is plenty to keep you amused throughout.

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and 16x9 enhanced, this is truly a fine transfer. Picture is sharp for the most part and colours are true. There are the usual problems encountered with stage lighting and aliasing occurs in the usual places like guitar strings and speakers, but these do not detract from the show. There is a loss of detail on some of the audience shots, but generally it is good. This is really well directed, capturing the feel of the concert wonderfully. Subtitles would have been nice as the lyrics are a bit hard to understand at times, as is the audience interaction, but the majority of die-hard fans will not need subtitles. The layer change occurs at 54:05 between tracks and does not intrude on the concert.

Audio supplied is a choice of Dolby Digital 2.0 or 5.1. The DD 5.1 is by far the better of the two, giving a much fuller sound and an overall better concert feel. The DD 5.1 is also decidedly louder and I would suggest the only use of the DD 2.0 would be for those without surround capabilities. Music is kept primarily across the front speakers with the rear speakers used well for some of the backing singing and audience noise to make you feel you are actually there. Audio is generally clear although it is hard to understand some of the lyrics sometimes, but this would be more so due to the performance rather than the transfer. Audio sync is never a problem and the subwoofer gets an aggressive workout.

There is a good dose of extras on this release so I shall list them.

Behind The Scenes of Maximum Rock
This featurette is a look backstage during the Maximum Rock Tour. There are interviews with band members and other backstage footage, with a running time of 8:48. This feature is in full frame and DD 2.0.

Making of New Tattoo
This featurette runs for 6:40 and goes into the studio with the band to look at the recording of the New Tattoo album.

Nobody Knows
This is the audio only track of Nobody Knows What it’s Like to Be Lonely. This song is said to be the first ever-recorded song of Motley Crue, which was found in 1999. Something unique for fans that runs for 6:33.

Hell on High Heels Video
From the new album, this is an animated video clip. Running for 4:00 and presented in 1.78:1, this is not a video for the kiddies.

Get the Dirt
Simply an advertisement for the book The Dirt, the autobiography of Motley Crue.

DVD-ROM extras
For those lucky enough to have a DVD-ROM drive on their computers, these extras contain two screensavers (even one for Mac users) and an animated Motley Crue logo. There are also a couple of HTML files, but the addresses for these are given in the features menu as links anyway.

Overall, fans will love this DVD. Others that enjoy a good rock and roll show should also enjoy. The picture and sound quality are very good and the band is at their best. The extras contained are generally very good also, so get out the hair gel, the air guitar, pump it up and kickstart your heart!