2005 YEAR IN REVIEW: U2, PRETENDERS IN ROCK HALL

The big comeback in 2005 was Motley Crue. Mick Mars, Vince Neil, Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx put all their differences aside for the Carnival Of Sins. The boys proved that ‘80s style rock was still high in demand, despite radio in most markets leaving them for dead.”

The band sold out arenas and amphitheaters across America during the year. Motley Crue split the show into early material and later material with a short intermission in between. Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx told us the biggest obstacle in getting the tour together.

[Sixx] “Finding the right midget.” [Lee] “Yeah.” [Sixx] “It was hard. We actually had to have midget auditions. How wrong is that?” Lee added, “What? You can’t blow fire? Next.” Sixx said, “Yeah with a midget he had to be able to blow fire, ride a unicycle, juggle…” Lee chimed in, “…and every once in a while give us a ride.” Sixx agreed, “Yeah give us a ride, and be wild and hang out. So we got the right guys. So that was the start.”

So does the band have plans beyond the Carnival Of Sins tour reunion?

[Lee] “You know what? We… we always take everything sort of one day at a time because that’s just how we roll. But Nikki and I have our recording studios out here on our tour busses and we’re going to I’m sure write some music and just kind of keep things rolling.” [Sixx] “Yeah” [Lee] “We’ll see what happens.”

Motley Crue was not on tour in vein. The band was out promoting a new best of compilation featuring a handful of new tunes, one of which was written by pop/punksters Simple Plan.