VINCE NEIL GIVES THE FANS WHAT THEY WANT

September 28th, 2010 at 10:30am
Axl Rosenberg

100

I saw Vince Neil’s solo band live once… I think this was around 2001/2002ish, but don’t quote me on that. Anyways, the show was at B.B. King’s, a venue that holds roughly 500 people (or so I’m told — it actually looks way smaller to me), and it was reasonably crowded — tickets were like twenty bucks or something reasonable like that. Vince’s voice sounded like shit, which is nothing new, but he took advantage of the small space by playing a requests-only show. I’m totally serious: The band opened with “Kickstart My Heart,” but after that, Vince literally let people in the crowd shout out song titles, and then the band played ’em. I think they only turned one person down ’cause they didn’t know the song; for the most part, they were like a Motley Crue jukebox, with a real-live member of Motley Crue leading the charge. So even though we were all watching a fat, winded version of an old hero, it was still pretty fun, ’cause Neil wisely made the show as fan-friendly as he possibly could.

But I guess he’s not doing that anymore, ’cause Metal Insider’s Bram Teitelman caught his gig at the 1,800 person capacity Irving Plaza last week, and does not have nice things to say. For one thing, tickets were $35, without a name opening act, and while the setlist had ten songs on it, the band only played nine. Nine songs for a $35 headlining set. Sheesh.

But wait! It gets worse. Says Teitelman:

“…the ‘Blando medley’ consisted of Vince’s backup band (including Slaughter guitarist Jeff Blando) paying tribute to Dio with ‘Heaven and Hell,’ and then covering Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love.’ His backing band was actually very solid, and they had to be, because they were playing without Neil. That’s right – during the middle of his nine song set, Neil disappeared backstage for 10 minutes.”

So, in essence, Vince is sending the following message to anyone who’s still willing to pay to see him without Motley Crue:

How does this guy still have a career? He can’t sing, he can barely move, he publicly talks shit about his band mates, he shits all over his fans, and, oh yeah, he’s incredibly dangerous. There are days when I think that Vince Neil makes Axl Rose look like a real keeper, y’know?