By Albert Mansour
Motor City Mayhem is a 23 track, two CD live album set. After a 40 year touring career, this captures the Nuge performing his 6000th show for more than 20,000 fans in the Motor city: Detroit, Michigan. This is Ted Nugent’s seventh live album: Double Live Gonzo, Intensities in 10 Cities, Live at Hammersmith ’79, Full Bluntal Nugity, Extended Versions, and Sweden Rocks already preceded it. Motor City Mayhem doesn’t compare to the mega Double Live Gonzo, but this album is loaded with tons of classic Nugent tunes like Wango Tango, Free For All, Dog Eat Dog, Weekend Warrior, Cat Scratch Fever, Wang Dang Sweet Poontang as well as covers of Baby Please Don’t Go (originally recorded by Big Joe Williams in 1935), Soul Man and Chuck Berry’s 1958 hit Johnny b. Goode. To get the full impact of this a dose of Nugent – which has been released in multiple formats – I’d choose the DVD over the CD. It’s more fun, cheaper and offers more bang for your Nugent buck. But getting back to The album, the only draw back here is that Ted Nugent has tuned into some type of crazy American nationalist , Pro-American to the tits, with everything from a girl leaping out of a cake clad in a stars and stripes bikini to playing “Star Spangled Anthem” on guitar while surrounded by US Guard troops. It gets to a point where it’s a little bit of overload. Don’t get me wrong, I love Americans to death but this is overkill. I can’t see this album doing very well in Europe, Scandinavia and the rest of world, but it should do fine at home.
(Eagle Records)
