MÖTLEY CRÜE has shared a brief video recap of the first few shows of “The Stadium Tour”. The North American run of dates kicked off on June 16 in Atlanta, Georgia and will conclude on September 9 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
CRÜE‘s long-delayed North American trek with DEF LEPPARD, POISON and JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS was originally planned for 2020 and later moved to 2021 and then to 2022.
MÖTLEY CRÜE‘s Tommy Lee played the first full show of “The Stadium Tour” on June 28 at Bank Of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The 59-year-old drummer hadn’t been able to play full sets on the trek after sustaining his injuries about two weeks before the tour’s launch. According to his wife, Tommy broke four ribs on his right side after falling down the stairs of a rental home in Nashville while CRÜE was rehearsing for the shows.
On June 22, at CRÜE‘s show at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., Lee made light of his injuries by dropping some meaty ribs into the audience.
Tommy joked with the crowd: “For the people that know, here’s a little fucking joke on the whole situation.
“For those of you that don’t know, I brought a couple of unbroken ribs for y’all to throw down on.
“Let’s fucking party, goddammit. Ribs? How about some fucking ribs?”
At most of the first few shows on “The Stadium Tour”, Tommy had been playing the first three songs of CRÜE‘s set before being replaced by Tommy Clufetos for the rest of the concert. However, during CRÜE‘s June 25 performance at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Lee returned at several points later in the night to play five more tracks, including “The Dirt (Est. 1981)”, “Dr. Feelgood” and “Home Sweet Home”.
On June 17, MÖTLEY CRÜE bassist Nikki Sixx praised Tommy for “beasting” through the first five songs of the band’s kick-off concert in Atlanta, writing on Twitter: “The fact that Tommy was told by the doctor to not play with 4 broken ribs & he beasted half our show is a miracle. We are a band and are proud of his strength. He is doing the whole tour and day by day adding more songs. What a fucking animal. Anybody out there ever break ur ribs?”
When he initially announced at the Atlanta show that he had broken his ribs, Lee told the audience: “I wish I had a fuckin’ badass story, like me and Conor McGregor fuckin’ scrapping out in some fuckin’ bar or something, but I don’t.” Three days later, at CRÜE‘s concert in Orlando, Lee said: “About fuckin’ two weeks ago, I broke not one, not two, not three but four fuckin’ ribs right here. Crack. I’m not gonna tell you how because it’s fuckin’ bullshit. I wish I had a cool story for you, but I definitely don’t, man; it ain’t fuckin’ cool.”
“The Stadium Tour” marks the CRÜE‘s first live dates since wrapping its 2014/2015 farewell tour. CRÜE toured with POISON back in 2011 and DEF LEPPARD teamed up with POISON for a string of road dates in 2017, but this jaunt marks the first time all four acts have hit the road together for an extended tour.
CRÜE fans who shelled out for the band’s 2014/2015 “farewell” tour were led to believe that the group would never return after playing its final show on December 2015 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The band touted the signing of a pre-tour “cessation of touring” agreement as cementing the fact it truly was the end of CRÜE‘s life on the road.