A diverse 'crüe' hails band

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By HILARY KINDSCHUH / Lincoln Journal Star

It’s Friday night, and the Crüe has come to town. Read the review

A 24-year-old man with shoulder-length blond hair and piercings in his eyebrow and nose leads a blond boy to the front of the sold-out Pershing Center, where they take their $200-apiece front row seats.

“This is my baby brother,” Merle Nicola says proudly. “He’s been singing Mötley Crüe since he was 4 years old.”

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Roger Noonam, 11, rocks out with his older brother Merle Nicola, 44. Nicola, a passionate Motley Crue fan, traveled from North Platte to take his younger brother to his first Crue concert. (Teresa Prince)

Roger Noonam, 11, rocks out with his older brother Merle Nicola, 44. Nicola, a passionate Motley Crue fan, traveled from North Platte to take his younger brother to his first Crue concert. (Teresa Prince)

Nicola and his 11-year-old brother, Roger Noonan, have driven from North Platte to Pershing, where they are joined by their older brother, 31-year-old Nick Nicola of Omaha.

While the two older brothers have seen Mötley Crüe in concert about 15 times, tonight is Roger’s first Crüe concert.

“I was at the front row my first concert, and he’s going to be in the front row at his concert,” Merle Nicola says.

The three brothers, all sporting Crüe T-shirts, have high expectations for the concert. They grew up listening to the hell-raising, big hair band, as famous for its rock hits as for its members’ headline-grabbing personal lives.

“It will be probably over the top,” Merle Nicola says. “Probably one of the best shows I’ll ever see. It’s going to be awesome.”

A few seats down, several women talk excitedly about one particular member of the band.

“We’re kind of obsessed with Nikki Sixx,” says June Audley, 41, of Olathe, Kan.

“Uh, yeah,” says her companion, 21-year-old Cassie Hood of Omaha.

“I have Nikki Sixx on my arm,” Hood says, showing off a tattooed likeness of the bass player on her upper right arm.

Sixx saw Hood’s tattoo at a previous concert, but that was before she had added his hair, she says.

“He loved it,” says Hood, who also has “Mötley Crüe” tattooed on one of her ankles.

She still needs to add the rest of his arms and fill in some shading, she says.

And she’s not stopping after that.

“I’m going to get one of his bass guitars on my inner arm,” she says.

While some mothers might disapprove of so many tattoos, Hood says her mom loved hers.

“My mom is a huge Crüe fan,” she says. “I was raised on it.”

That’s one of the reasons the band is special to Hood.

“Every time I hear a Crüe song, I get goose bumps,” she says. “Words can’t explain what it does to me, basically.”

Reach Hilary Kindschuh at 473-7120 or hkindschuh@journalstar.com.