Mötley Crüe was accused of faking live performances by former guitarist Mick Mars in a recent lawsuit, and they've been pretty pissed about it ever since. I mean seriously, whoever runs their social media literally called a fan a "fucking clown" over it. But a video of Mötley Crüe performing "The Dirt (Est. 1981)" at Hellfest 2023 certainly doesn't help prove these allegations false.
Look no further than 0:35 and beyond in the above video. There are vocal lines that are finishing without the microphone being anywhere near vocalist Vince Neil's face (the word "down" in the phrase "break us down" is particularly egregious), and it's not an isolated incident either – you'll see it happen a few times throughout the video. It's also suspicious that Neil sounds pitch perfect the entire time given a lot of his recent performances. Machine Gun Kelly also joined the band on stage as a guest for the song, which is a thing that certainly happened.
Weirdly, this doesn't seem to be the case when Mötley Crüe played "Shout At The Devil" as you can see below. Neil sounds way more like he normally does live, but for whatever reason "The Dirt (Est. 1981)" is a different story.
I think Wolfgang Van Halen put it best in a recent interview regarding backing tracks live – "I think everybody else draws their own line with what tracks are acceptable or not, but it's, like, if you're pumping in the main guitar riff and the lead vocals and actual fucking drums — like, pre-recorded drums — that's a problem. You should be able to play your shit.
"I can understand [if] you don't have a keyboard player, so [you] need the pad. That's fine. You can't carry around a 60-piece orchestra, so you've got the strings. That's fine. But lead vocal, main guitar, main bass and the drums — you should be playing that. [Laughs]"
