Mötley Crüe Wraps Up an Era With ‘The End: Live In Los Angeles’ (DVD REVIEW)

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It’s been almost a year since Mötley Crüe ended their farewell tour. Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, Vince Neil and Nikki Sixx have moved on to other projects while the dust settled over the grave of the band that began thirty-five years ago in a seedy section of Hollywood. As a thank you to fans, they are releasing , a live DVD/CD/BluRay combo to soothe the heartbreak that was left when everyone walked out of the Staples Center on New Year’s Eve 2015.

Featuring fifteen tracks from their colorful career, The End is a delicious souvenir from their worldwide goodbye. If you saw them in Tokyo, Chicago, Melbourne, New Orleans or one of the other 150 plus cities, then you already know what’s ahead. So grab the popcorn and a cold beer and relive the memories.

You will especially enjoy the close-ups of Mars playing guitar and Lee sweating upside down on his moving Crucifier drum set if you happened to be in the cheap seats at the actual venues. If you were in the front, you will get a better view of the final “Home Sweet Home,” played intimately to the nether regions of the arenas.

The setlist rarely wavered from the get-go: Opening with “Girls Girls Girls;” Lee’s traveling-over-the-audience drum solo followed by Mars’ electrifying guitar spotlight; ending the show with a fire-breathing, pyro-shooting, confetti-flying “Kickstart My Heart;” and saying their final adieus with “Home Sweet Home.” In-between, it was “Wild Side,” “Looks That Kill,” “Dr Feelgood,” “Don’t Go Away Mad,” and what the band considers their career summation – “Saints Of Los Angeles.”

The bonus segments are top notch, especially the interviews with each member talking about the band, their legacy and their songs, with several amusing tidbits like Mars recounting Sixx cutting up a mattress and throwing it over a hotel ledge and all four on why “Home Sweet Home” would always be the last song they ever played. Combined with a segment on Lee’s rolling drum set and Sixx’s flame-throwing bass – which caused the boys in the men to shine through once again – it makes this package feel complete.

The accompanying booklet is basically a few photos and credits but would have liked it to be filled out more with perhaps a listing of all the cities on the tour or behind the scenes photos; and maybe in the bonus section there should have been a snippet from the press conference when they made their final tour announcement and signed official documents. That would have tied it all up even better. But who is complaining when you have the footage so appetizing and always there to bring you back to a show where you waved goodbye to your favorite sleazy LA boys.

Live photo by Leslie Michele Derrough

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