The much anticipated Stadium Tour featuring Classless Act, Joan Jet and the Blackhearts, Poison, Def Leppard, and Motley Crue finally made its way to the Alamo City on Sunday, Aug 21 after a two-year postponement. I'm not exactly sure but it looked to be a sold-out show. The stadium was filled to the rafters with both young and old and everything in between. I must admit having a rock show on a Sunday afternoon with a start time of 4 o'clock was a little strange, but once the lights went down time didn't seem to matter much.
Kicking the show off was newcomers Classless Act, a up-and-coming band from Los Angeles that is proudly carrying the classic rock flag. I'm not sure what's in the water in the L.A. area but it has been producing some killer classic rock-sounding bands lately. These guys have the sound the look and the attitude to make good things happen.
Joan Jett was up next to rock the Alamodome stage and rock she did. Wearing her trademark black leather jacket with her guitar strung low Joan played a set chalked full of hits, not leaving out anything that you may have expected, including a new song off a yet-to-be-released album.
Poison was up next and they defiantly brought the "party" and the energy to the stage. Poison played a ripping set full of the classic hair metal songs that they are known for. Brett Michaels and company covered all the bases in their one-hour performance playing all the MTV favorites as well as most of the big radio hits. I guess with only one-hour to work with you would have to leave a few gems off the list. There were a few good ones that didn't make the cut but judging by the crowd's enthusiasm nobody seemed to notice. Poison still puts on a high-energy show after all these years.
On this tour, Motely Crue and Def Leppard are trading off headlining slots. For our show we had the Crue headline, and Def Leppard would open for them. As expected Def Leppard was super polished bringing the crowd to their feet for the entire performance. Leppard would play a good variety of the hits spanning the entirety of their catalog with a few exceptions. A few songs didn't make the list but a few new songs did. A great performance full of huge choruses and loud guitars.
To close out the night the mighty Motley Crue were up to close out this night of epic 80s goodness. kicking things off with "Wildside" then straight into Crue classics "Shout at the Devil" and "Too Fast for Love" The stage and the light show were epic, complete with "dancing" girls and rising platforms. Much has been written already of the shortcomings of the Crue's performance, but call me prepared or informed I thought it was a good show. The setlist was definitely a best of, covering most of their arena-rocking hits.
In a time when most bands of this era contain 1or 2 original members, if that, this tour had 3 bands that are pretty close to being all original. That is no easy feat to pull off these days. If you grew up during the hair metal days or are just discovering it, this tour pretty much covers all the bases and certainly will take you back to the big hair and tight pants days.
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