Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — Get ready for overindulgence because Steamboat is getting hit by a couple of strange comeback tours. Yes, 2 Live Crew hits Steamboat Springs Aug. 9, and five days later, one of the kings of glam rock gluttony, Vince Neil, comes to town.

These are national figures in the music industry stepping up to the Levelz stage. But why do celebrity boxing matches come to mind when I think of these shows?

This is a good time for me to admit to owning a couple of albums from each of these groups when I was in junior high school I still know the words to a couple of their songs.

Even though it will be entertaining to hear some old Crue or 2 Live Crew songs, it's not exactly the music that intrigues me. It's the artists themselves.

On one hand you have Luther Campbell and the boys of 2 Live Crew. Here are guys that made national headlines after being arrested for rapping sexually explicit lyrics. After that they won a court case that said the arrest was unjust. They put out another album and were pretty much ignored by the mainstream.

Then there's Neil. In the '80s, he and his band, Motley Crue, pretty much took the whole sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll thing to a different level, complete with makeup, motorcycles and big hair. Motley Crue broke up and we didn't hear much more from Neil after that.

But for some reason, no one is forgotten in the world of the mainstream, even if they want to be. Both acts etched their place in the psyche of the era, leaving us behind to still wonder years later, "Who the hell are these guys?"

Now, after the Rolling Stone feature articles, after the stadium concerts, after the peak of their careers and after the VH1 Behind the Music documentaries, 2 Live Crew and Vince Neil are each stopping in Steamboat Springs to answer that question.

Will the music be good? Maybe.

Will it be entertaining? Probably.