By Daniel Hartill,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Rockers Motley Crue tried melting the ice at Lewiston’s Colisee with a fireballing show Monday.

The production was loud and hot, featuring walls of flame, bikini-clad dancers and a clowning midget.

It was also deafening.

The 1980s metal band nearly filled the 4,700-seat arena with a combination of teens and graying 40-something adults.

“This is the concert my parents wouldn’t let me attend when I was a kid,” said Shawn Hebert of Standish. The dad brought his 16-year-old daughter, Amanda Robbins, to the show.

“I grew up on this stuff,” Hebert said. “I wanted to be the parents that my parents couldn’t be.”

Robbins, painted with dark makeup and wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt, seemed ready.

“Their music, especially the old stuff, is awesome,” she said.

The old stuff, something for which lead singer Vince Neil had his own unrepeatable phrase, was a big part of the show.

It began shortly after 8 p.m. in a haze from a hardworking fog machine.

The show started with a short animated film depicting the four-man band – Neil, Nikki Sixx, Mick Mars and Tommy Lee – as stop-motion figures.

In the film, the four learn that the Earth is about to be hit by an asteroid. After trying to sling-shot a bosomy fan toward the incoming rock, they decide to hold a concert.

Then came the clown-clothed midget followed by the dancers.

A moment later, the musicians started to play one of their signature songs, “Shout at the Devil.”

On either side of Lee’s drum pedestal, walls of flame shot up as the music erupted.

The song, like much of their set, was more than 20 years old. No one in the crowd, their forefingers and pinkies raised in metal solidarity, seemed to mind, though.

“They’re standing the test of time,” said D.J. McKenzie, 31, of Windham. “They’re down to earth. They’re real, and they tell it like it is.”

McKenzie was just a kid when he started listening to the music, first on vinyl, then on tape and finally on compact disc.

“I was the youngest of eight kids and the music was always on,” he said. Motley Crue was also on TV. “That’s when MTV actually played music videos.”

McKenzie said he was heartened that the band is still playing its music, even if it’s no longer filling the stadiums where the band members once played.

“It shows they still have the passion,” he said.

Brian Babb, 17, of Windham, had a different perspective.

The band members, each on the north side of 40 years old, won’t be able to rock forever.

“They aren’t going to be around too much longer,” said the teen, who readied for the show with Monster energy drinks.

“Now, I can say I’ve seen them.”