The Crew and The Crue

January 28, 1986. What were you doing? Me? I had tickets to a Motley Crue concert at the Rhein-Neckar Halle in Eppelheim, West Germany. There was probably 6 or 7 of us from my dorm back in Ramstein, 4 of us were in my friend John's car. This was their Theatre of Pain tour and I don't remember who opened for them anymore, but I remember that before the concert started John returned from the restroom with the news. Yes, it was that day, that January 28th, 1986. John told us he heard from a US soldier that the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded on take-off and that there were no survivors. Our response was skepticism, that we would have heard if it were true. Do the math, though, we were 6 hours ahead of the East Coast which would have put us outside the concert hall at 11:38 AM eastern standard time. Later, after the concert, on our way back to the base we heard the news report on AFN Radio, it was real, it really happened. We pulled to the side of the road so we could hear every word they said and I remember thinking out loud, "What Now?" Well, 22 years have gone by now, the Shuttle Columbia exploded on re-entry 5 years ago this Friday and the Space Shuttle program goes on with most people not even blinking an eye or even knowing, or caring. That's what now.

These pictures are from the Motley Crue concert, the top is Nikki Sixx and Vince Neil, the bottom picture would be Tommy Lee's rotating drum stand, this is the one that only rotated 90 degrees not the one that later would spin 180 degrees. The pictures are from scans, the camera was my first 35mm, the Olympus XA2.