Now that you are relieved to hear that (although personally I find Lewd, Crued comedy gold), I’ll elaborate.

This DVD is the Crue’s two and a half hour Carnival Of Sins show in its entirety, and was filmed in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Seems a bit of an odd location to film the DVD in, as surely their hometown gig in Los Angeles would have been more obvious, but never mind. The set list is in chronological order, so the first half is all Shout At The Devil, Too Fast For Love, Live Wire etc, while the second half starts from Girls Girls Girls and brings us right up to date.

Everyone has probably seen what the tour looks like by now, and this DVD makes full use of the whole circus theme, with close ups of the dancers, aerialists, and the midget Mighty Mike. There are really excellent shots of the band too, such as Nikki leaning into the crowd to bite some girl’s fingers (lucky cow) and one of Vince at the beginning of Home Sweet Home looking out into a pitch black arena with thousands of lighters held aloft. It looks gorgeous, but when Tommy plays the piano intro of Home Sweet Home and then stops in order for the crowd to sing the verse themselves (as he did every show), they don’t! How thick are people? Even Vince looks a bit disappointed,

There is some overdubbing on some of the vocals, most notably on Ten Seconds To Love, but this is probably a good thing rather than a bad thing. While Vince’s vocals have improved considerably since their last live DVD, the overdubbing perhaps helps some of the more painful aspects of his singing. Overall the band sounds very good.

It’s not really fair on Vince to say that, though. He sings On With The Show superbly, and Without You is almost perfect. Without You forms a duo of ballads along with Glitter, and for UK fans who caught them live in June ’05, it’s an opportunity to see these two songs live for the first time, as the Crue dropped them from the set for their visit to the UK. They also dropped Tommy’s drum solo, which is maybe a blessing as I found the drum solo the most boring part of this DVD. Yes, Tommy jumping between two drum kits on a bungee rope looks spectacular, but I’m not really interested in seeing him drumming on oversized tin cans. Then again, if that floats your boat you’ll love it.

The tittycam is included which is fine, but the whole way throughout the DVD there are close ups of the audience, so you see plenty of women with their tops off before the tittycam even comes on! I really don’t want to see some girl gyrating against her friend, thanks all the same. Then again, maybe (probably) male viewers will love it. In my opinion there are far too many occasions when the camera cuts from the band onto the crowd, who appear to be full of skanky looking women and redneck men who you really wouldn’t want to meet down a dark alley. The stage looks so brilliant that I found it quite annoying when the crowd were shown- between all the dancers, Mick walking about as best he can, Vince running about like a man half his age, Tommy twirling his drumsticks and Nikki plodding about, there is enough action going on, without showing what seems like the entire population of Grand Rapids.

There is a disc full of extras on this DVD, which include the videos for latest releases If I Die Tomorrow and Sick Love Song. If I Die Tomorrow is a fantastic video, one of the best ones they’ve done, and Sick Love Song is just footage from the tour. Other extras include featurettes on the Tittycam, behind the scenes aspects of the tour, and a short piece about fans with platinum passes meeting the band. Rest assured that if Hairmetalireland had had these passes in Glasgow and Cardiff back in June, we would still be hanging onto Vince and Nikki’s legs and REFUSING TO LET GO.

Overall, a fantastic DVD that really captures the atmosphere of the Carnival Of Sins tour, and one to watch whether or not you’re a big Crue fan.
8.5/10
Suzie