Have you ever seen one of those high school flicks in which a nerdy guy has the night of his life - one filled with fast cars, scantily clad girls, and rock and roll? Well, on the evening of Saturday, Nov. 1, I was that nerd.
I was living a movie because I attended Dodge Rocks Gas Monkey. Richard Rawlings, of "Fast N' Loud" fame and the owner of the Gas Monkey Garage in Dallas, Texas recently opened the concert venue Gas Monkey Live across the street from one of his two Gas Monkey Bar N' Grill locations. Given that he's a motorhead and 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of Dodge, it made sense that he agreed to host a giant Mopar gathering in the parking lot of his music hotspot. Rawlings is also a big Motley Crue fan, so guess who he had break in his new stage? That's right: Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, Mick Mars, and Tommy Lee were there. More on them later in this post...
After I checked in at the W Dallas - Victory hotel, one of my friends with Event Solutions International (hi, Mark!) shuttled me over to Gas Monkey Live. There was a chill in the November air that was off-set by the amount of body heat (and firepower) on the ground. Attendees were showing off their Dodge, Plymouth, and SRT rides; eating BBQ; buying memorabilia and commemorative souvenirs; and drinking shots and beers sold by attractive ladies in tank tops. According to Eileen Wunderlich, manager of marketing communications at Chrysler Group LLC, 2,200 people showed up. Of course, not everyone brought a car to display, but there were still 850 of them parked on the pavement.
The line for those "vehicles" was long enough, but it was shorter than the one for the thrill rides in the Challenger Hellcats. Dodge had two of them on-hand and a pair of factory drivers ready to take patrons (riding shotgun) down an 1/8-mile stretch of pavement as quickly as possible. After what seemed to be two hours, it was finally my turn.
Taking a balls-out ride in a car with 707 horsepower felt exactly the way I thought it would. That's not a bad thing. I was pushed back in my seat as if I were in a space shuttle during lift-off. I could feel the rear end of the Challenger squirming as its back tires tried to break free from the tarmac. My driver made minor steering corrections to keep the Hellcat pointed straight and we absolutely cheetah'd our way down the makeshift drag strip. What surprised me was the fact that the traction control was on and the beastmaster next to me took off at the green light without using launch mode. I was impressed. The traction control didn't spoil our fun. It was like a parent who gives their teenager a midnight curfew. "You can have fun, but there are still rules."
Although by the time I emerged from the Hellcat my feet and ankles were aching, I just had to watch a trio of Vipers drifting in their fenced-in nest. A pall of white smoke billowed from each snake's rear rollers, which chirped in protest with each quick direction change. Blue flame tongues flicked out of each serpent's side exhaust pipes. I witnessed a couple of close calls in which one of the Vipers almost hit a wall. That's the difference between me and a drifter: I would have freaked out, braked too late, and left an $85,000 V-10 dream machine with chain link hash marks on its beautiful, curvy body work.
I proceeded to take a few pictures of the rows upon rows of Chargers and Challengers that surrounded me, then headed back into Gas Monkey Live to get ready to watch Motley Crue rock the house. After excusing myself through several people and finding the appetizer stations picked clean, I chose a spot from which to take in the show. Rawlings came on stage to announce that having the band play at his own bar has been a dream of his since he graduated high school in 1987. While I don't share his ambition (especially because I was a toddler in '87), I can certainly respect it and congratulate him on making a longtime wish of his come true. He never gave up and made the fantasy in his head into a reality. As Rawlings would say: "WOOH!"
I'm not a fan of '80s rock. However, I must admit that Motley Crue killed it! (My phone's video camera and microphone really didn't do them justice.) They played as if they were a group of dudes in their early 20s. I could feel the sound of the show vibrating through the walls of the men's room. Nikki Sixx sliced off thick wedges of bass sound with his axe. Tommy Lee pounded on the drums as if they slapped his sister. Mick Mars used his electric guitar to send sonic waves from the fog-clouded stage into the crowd of screaming and cheering gearheads. Vince Neil did a little of everything. He sang (with sexy dancing girls in hot pants singing backup vocals behind him). He pumped up the audience. Once or twice, he strapped on a guitar and rocked out with Sixx and Mars, as he's been doing off-and-on for the past 33 years. The North American leg of Motley Crue's Final Tour concludes on Nov. 22. Next year, the group will finish its last set of concerts overseas.
Motley Crue is a stadium/arena band, so it was a real privilege to see those guys in a relatively intimate space such as Gas Monkey Live. The Mopar muscle outside was abundant and got my heart racing (kickstarted, perhaps?). What a bash. The best part? I didn't have to clean up, talk to the cops, or worry about my parents coming home early. Wooh!
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