Let's face it. With their sleaze, attitude and sloppy-drunk guitar riffs, Mötley Crüe have always been a bar band, albeit of the Hollywood variety. It's just that at one point, they got big - and good - enough that they should have been playing beer halls in Valhalla, or wherever the girlfriends of bikers go when they die.
Which is a pretty good way to describe their Bell Centre concert last night. Lit by pyrotechnics, the '80s hard-rock superstars took the stage with Kickstart My Heart, bringing the crowd of 7,000 to their feet instantly, and kept a rowdy atmosphere going the whole night.
Formed in 1981, Mötley Crüe sold millions of albums before grunge and infighting nearly ground them to a halt in the '90s. But in the past few years, an only semi-ironic resurgence in hair metal's popularity has once again brought them to stadium touring.
And, as they demonstrated in the final stop of their Canadian Dead of Winter tour, they haven't lost a step. Yes, Vince Neil may be a bit meatier than the mysterious Sunset Strip hermaphrodite he once effortlessly embodied. But the man still has pipes, hitting the high notes perfectly in 1985's Louder Than Hell and Live Wire, from their 1981 debut Too Fast For Love. Tommy Lee can still pound his massive drums, which appeared to be made of segments cut from wind tunnels and industrial smokestacks, with thunderous precision. Chief songwriter and bassist Nikki Sixx still resembles a mean, 20-year-old street kid, and black-clad guitarist Mick Mars continues to look exactly like a tattoo a sailor might get of either the grim reaper or Baron Samedi.
The stage set - with its steampunk mic stands and fake rock background, giving the distinct impression of the cave where Tony Stark made Iron Man - could barely contain all the energy, fireworks and raucousness on display.
And the crowd ate it up, pulling out lighters during power ballad Home Sweet Home, cheering wildly through the title track of 1983's Shout at the Devil, and singing along to Mutherf---er of the Year, from 2008's Saints of Los Angeles.
Of course, it wasn't perfect. Fitting in with the bar band atmosphere, the band's sound was a little muddy. Granted, that's the way Mötley Crüe sounds best, with Mars's bluesy licks sounding raw enough to get tetanus. While that worked during Looks That Kill - with the chorus guitar riff crunching menacingly - it did reduce moments of Mars's lengthy mid-set guitar solo to incomprehensibility, and sucked some of the bite from Primal Scream.
Another issue was the short set list. Mainly focused on their '80s material, it completely ignored their eponymous 1994 record, 1997's Generation Swine, and 2000's New Tattoo, making the experience a little bit like cranking up the volume of 1991's greatest hits comp Decade of Decadence.
Also, despite the number of frat parties it gets played at, I've yet to be convinced Girls, Girls, Girls constitutes a classic.
But, nevertheless, there was a lot of fun to be had at the show. Each band member took the spotlight at some point, which not only contributed to the party atmosphere, but also allowed Tommy Lee to bounce around and yell like a teenage skateboarder high on amphetamines, which is more charming than it sounds.
The show was opened by Australian hard rockers Airbourne, and Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry's side project, the aptly named Joe Perry Project.
