MOTLEY CRUDE – LIVE REVIEW Glasgow Garage – 1st August 2025

 

Pulling almost exclusively from the big four opening albums the setlist perfectly balances the chaotic energy that is peak Crue. The opening salvo of Live Wire, Looks That Kill, Shout at the Devil and Too Young to Fall in Love lets the positively healthy crowd know that they are in for a quality night of Crue action and perhaps more importantly that some serious thought has been put into the sequencing and song combinations that are exploding off the Garage stage.

 

As we transition into the classy bluesy swagger of Smoking in the Boys Room my eyes drift back to the crowd and what becomes apparent is as much as there are absolutely OG Motley fans in here who would have no doubt seen the originals tear through the Edinburgh Playhouse twice in three years back in the eighties there are also fans in the room who are two generations removed from those halcyon years and that is perhaps the biggest compliment Crude and the music of Motley can get.

 

Back to the present and as the setlist now bounces between decadence and deep cuts it was nice to see a big reaction for If I Die Tomorrow and Children of the Beast before the customary solo sections for Messrs Lee and Mars allowed some social interplay between stage and crowd. Wildside and Take Me to the Top then take us into one of my personal favourites in Primal Scream, there’s just something about that low end rumble intro and the raunch n roll guitar sound that awaken another level in my ears and soul.

 

For a show that clocks in at more than two hours it goes in very quickly and before we know it, we’re five songs from the finish but what a quality quintet to finish on. From the always gorgeous serenade of Home Sweet Home into the anthemic Dr Feelgood by way of another of my favourites Helter Skelter Motley Crude are delivering an outstanding big finish worthy of any band or stage. By the time everyone has sung themselves hoarse to Girls, Girls, Girls there’s really only one song left to finish a night like this, and it is ironically enough what Motley opened with at the already mentioned Playhouse show back in 89’. 

 

Kickstart My Heart is just an open invitation for band and crowd to go absolutely nuts as the energy levels explode in a spectacular Cruecendo! There’s going to be a lot of people in need of a chiropractic neck adjustment after that, myself included, as I absolutely wrecked my neck in a bout of hair swinging exuberance that my old bones will feel for days.

 

There we have it then, two plus hours, twenty-four songs, four stellar musicians, hundreds of fans old and new and all in the name of Motley f*cking Crue! Motley Crude can and do rightly refer to themselves as the worlds number one Motley Crue tribute band and on tonight’s showing I’ll happily stand one hundred percent behind that statement.

 

Much love

SS

PS…For the purists out there please excuse the lack of umlauts, try as I might the transition from document to internet kept sending them into the ether!