No pics this time, just a fairly long recap of a really nice weekend.

I took in two concerts this past weekend. Friday, after watching Batman (I’m with most others – great movie) I went to see Motley Crue in Birmingham. Saturday I saw Fantomas in London. I thought I had a pretty good clue what to expect from each show – and was pretty much right, but I got more than I expected from the Crue.

Fantomas, on Saturday, was great. Mugison opened for Dalek who opened for Fantomas. Never listened either opening band before, but Mugison got me to buy his CD and Dalek bored me. Both stage setups featured Apple laptops. Mugison, a single dude, had a few guitars a synth/keyboard and a laptop. I walked in after he had started and almost wrote him off as a Patton wanabe – screeching and spazzing out in between crooning. But there was more to it and his guitar only finally blew me away. Dalek had a DJ who was pretty impressive but an MC who was monotonous – which ruined it for me. Fantomas went as expected and it was a blast. They came on stage to the rockin’ version of America, F*** YEAH! And the brits had their fists in the air singing along. They exited (early, it seems – Patton: “We have to close with a really short one, because of the Disco you guys got planned – your fault, not mine”) the stage with the slow version of America. A fun night.

But Friday was actually a better night. Batman helped, I guess, but I was totally expecting it to be the most elaborate rubberneck I had ever seen. A bunch of fans, 20 years older than the fashions they were squeezing back into and the Crue past their prime – possibly fat, pathetic and almost certainly embarrassing themselves (Mr. Mars is already one hip replacement in the hole at this point). But hey – it’ll be good for a laugh.

The stuff about the fans – I was dead on right. We had passes to a “V.I.P.” lounge pre-show were we had a view of the fans as they came into the arena. 30 -40 year old women in fishnets, leather skirts and puffy hair. 30 – 40 year old men in old concert T-shirts. Often we saw a group of guys – and in almost every group there was one guy who seemed to be keeping it real…living the dream. There would be, say, four guys. Three would be in jeans and an old concert T, but pudgy, glasses and a business haircut (I was wearing a generic shirt and had my contacts in so I can evade my own contempt). The fourth guy, however, had hair to his ass, a leather jacket and usually a sweet belt and bitchin boots. This instance walked by at least 3 or 4 times. After about a ½ hour of this I looked at my buddy and said “All we need now is the leather jacket with the Indian fringe on the sleeved and the knee-high suede boots”. Ha-ha. Two minutes later – BAM! He didn’t have the boots but he had the ripped up jeans with bleach stains and I would bet money he went thru at least 2 cans of Aqua Net.

The stuff about the Crue – man, they actually put on a good show. Nikki Six got on the mic and talked out his ass for a few minutes but other than that it was a blast. They only played one new song…other than that it was all old stuff. They sounded great and the stage show was entertaining (accept, again, for Nikki..he brought some Reznorish keyboard set-up out and got industrial for a minute….and he used to be my hero). Tommy brought out a boob cam. Women flashed their boobs. The whole band seemed genuinely pleased to be their. The whole crowd was having a blast it seemed.

I was completely prepared to rip the shit out of the show. I’m glad I don’t feel like it now – it wouldn’t have been as much fun.

On a side note – Sunday capped a fun weekend with a day free of plans and my unshowered hiney parked in front of the game room TV most of the day. My kids made me presents, my wife made me breakfast. Good day.

I’ll finish with praise to my wife. Jenna gets all the kudos for my weekend. 3 days of me, me, me and she never failed to encourage me to have a good time. Thanks, honey. I never think I can love you more and you prove me wrong all the time.