Nikki Sixx

On September 18 the family went out to a Nikki Sixx book signing for his new book The Heroin Diaries. It chronicles a year of his life from Christmas of 1986 through the end of 1987. Needless to say this isn't a G-rated book and walks through one of Nikki's bouts with drug addiction.

The signing was at Borders one block from my office so I didn't have an excuse to skip out. The line was enormously long and once Nikki arrived it took a good 2 1/2 hours to get the autographs. When it was all said and done I had spent close to 4 1/2 hours waiting.

You never know how these events will go, and considering Motley Crue was one of my favorite bands growing up you don't want to get a bad impression of the artist if you do get a chance to meet them. As we approached Nikki's handlers were trying to fly us through. I have an original Motley Crue Stick To Your Guns / Toast Of The Town 7" single I had to get signed. His people were saying he would only sign the book and would not sign anything else. After a brief argument with his people I was able to show Nikki the single and he told them he had to sign it.

I have been on a bit of a mission with this single with the autographs. I had Tommy Lee sign it in 1987, ironically the year Nikki documents in his book, at an in store in Houston. I had Vince Neil sign it outside the Four Seasons hotel in Atlanta in 2005 and now Nikki in 2007. Now if I can only get a chance to meet Mick Mars I can complete this 20 year mission to get this single signed!

A Motley weekend

Last weekend definitely didn't work out as planned. Jacki, Darian and I had plans to fly back to Atlanta so Darian and I could see Motley Crue. I had purchased the platinum experience that entitled us to some nice extras (tour program, guitar picks, VIP room access) and some once in a lifetime pieces (meet and greet the band, photo with the band). Almost identical to the KISS experience I did a few years back.

Needless to say Darian and I were excited, especially after sitting on these tickets for over 6 months. We recently moved to LA and even made a special trip back to Atlanta to see the Crue. Of course we saw friends in Atlanta but the Crue was the primary driver for this trip.

The day started as planned. Wake up at an ungodly hour to catch a 6am flight to Atlanta. We got up, made the flight and arrived in Atlanta. Since I brought my Stick To Your Guns / Toast of the Town 45 and the new cd for autographs we decided to go to Best Buy and let Darian get something she could also get signed. She ended up going for the new cd as well.

Then about 2pm at lunch we get a call from Fanfire. They called to tell us the meet and greet was off. No explanation and all they offered was refunding the platinum package, and not even refund of the tickets. I was pissed but what could you do. We tried to call a couple of other people at Fanfire and they ignored our calls. I did get hold of the lady we were supposed to call in an emergency situation and she could have cared less that I had flown 2500 miles to see the but the ticket. The consolation prize, an autographed pic of the band.

We were told our tickets would be at will call so Darian and I left for the venue. Since we knew which hotel they were staying at we did a drive by. A small number of fans were outside so we decided to hang around to try to get an autograph. Normally I wouldn't do this but since the meet and greet was cancelled without explanation I figured why not.

First out was Nikki. He came out with his family and as a result didn't acknowledge the crowd. Next out was Vince and his wife. He had to walk through the crowd and it looked like he was going to just breeze by, but as he got to the first person he held out his hand, waited for a marker and then began to sign everyone's items. I finally got signature number 2 on the 45 (the first was from Tommy back in '86). He didn't talk but the crowd thought he was very cool for stopping and signing considering Nikki didn't even look at us.

Next out was Mick. He looked so frail. It took the crowds breath away seeing him walked slouched over to his bus. Crowd was very respectful and didn't walk over to him. As he got on the bus the security guy waved for us to come over and Mick signed for only one person and then went onto the bus.

We had a Tommy sighting but he quickly darted from the cab into the hotel avoiding the crowd altogther. For a fan friendly band I was extremely disappointed. Considering the meet and greet was cancelled they could have spent 2-3 minutes signing for the 10 people in front of the hotel.

After the minor disappointment we headed to the venue. Went by will call and discovered the promised guitar picks were not present, nor was the autographed photo. Made a couple of phone calls to fanfire and did not receive any response, just endless voice mail boxes.

Got inside the venue and at least our seats were good. We had 2nd row center with the elusive Ticketmaster 1x on the ticket. Darian and I noticed that the stage set up was for the Crue and had no gear for the opening bands. Sure enough The Exies, and Sum 41, 2 bands Darian really wanted to see had been removed from the tour. Just another in a day full of disappointments.

We ended up talking to other platinum ticket holders, and found out some of them weren't even notified about the cancelled meet and greet. They found out at the venue. And many of them had driven long distances to come to the show. A couple of groups we had talked to had driven 6 hours plus. The explanation they were provided was a scheduling conflict. This wouldn't be a problem if Darian and I hadn't seen all the guys at the hotel an hour before. They were all at the venue by 5:30 in plenty of time for a meet and greet.

The next minor disappointment was the show started 40 minutes late. Very small in the grand scheme of things.

The show finally started and other than a rough Too Fast For Love where Vince's vocals weren't in sync with the song the band sounded great.

Shout at the Devil
Too Fast For Love
Ten Seconds to Love
Red Hot (Nikki threatened to play a country song at this point)
On With The Show
Looks that Kill
Louder than Hell
Live Wire ....

And then during Live Wire Vince tore a muscle in his leg. Darian saw it happened and I saw him stumble off the stage. The band were still in the first verse of the song and played the song out as an instrumental. By the time they got to the end breaks you could tell the band didn't know what was going on. At this point Darian told me, she didn't think he was coming back.

The curtain then dropped and an announcement came on saying there would be a 10 minute intermission.

An hour later Tommy, Nikki, and Mick came out and announced Vince ripped a muscle and the show was cancelled.

End of show. 2500 miles, no meet and greet, no opening bands, missing platinum items, delayed show, and a 35 minute concert.

All I can say is the rest of my weekend was much better.

Photos taken with a Treo 650.