Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Theatre of Pain!

To all my fellow Crue fans…

This Glam Metal staple was released on June 21, 1985.

Theatre of Pain is the third studio album by Mötley Crüe. Released in the aftermath of lead vocalist Vince Neil's arrest for manslaughter on a drunk driving charge, the album marked the beginning of the band's transition away from the traditional Heavy Metal sound of Too Fast for Love and Shout at the Devil, towards a more Glam Metal style. Theatre of Pain contains the hit singles "Smokin' in the Boys Room" and the power ballad "Home Sweet Home". The album reached No. 6 on the US Billboard 200 and was certified quadruple platinum by the RIAA. Theatre of Pain has been credited, perhaps more so than any other release of its time and place, with transforming Heavy Metal from an album-oriented format to a singles-oriented format. The album was instrumental in inaugurating the Pop-metal era which to many has become synonymous with the 1980s, with bands such as Poison, Cinderella and others following the Theatre of Pain example as the decade continued.

Source: Wikipedia.org

I’ve been a fan of Metal and of Motley Crue since I was a kid.  While “Shout at the Devil” (1983) is my favorite Crue album, the band’s next album “Theatre of Pain” (1985) provided all of us with arguably the greatest Metal power ballad of all time, “Home Sweet Home”.  That summer, "Smokin' in the Boys Room" also became part of my soundtrack for a week-long soccer training camp at a nearby college.  Coincidently, songs from the next Crue album, Girls, Girls, Girls, would again become part of my training camp soundtrack in 1987.  I’ve seen this iconic band live on multiple occasions including on March 15, 2005 at Kemper Arena (Kansas City).  My wife and I saw Crue in concert when their “Final Tour” came to Kansas City’s Sprint Center (now T-Mobile Center) on August 3, 2014.

Aug. 3, 2014: My wife and I were fortunate to experience the band’s encore performance of “Home Sweet Home” up close and personal.

Video courtesy of Anthony Woodard

In February 2022, our band (Toxic A$$ets) brought the house down with our raucous performance of “Home Sweet Home”; an epic song makes for an epic finale!

Photo Credit: Josh Stolberg