Motörhead
Clean Your Clock

I remember that damned day as if it were yesterday. I turned on my phone, and the first news I read on Facebook was the following headline: "Lemmy Kilmister, leader of Motörhead, dead. He had just turned 70." Needless to say, what followed in me after reading that news was pain and disbelief. Sometimes you think that when you have an idol, they will never come face to face with death, that they remain immortal to satisfy our need to have a figure to idolize, to respect, and that sometimes, in an absolutely wrong way at least for me, we take as our future life example.

If Lemmy throughout his life had represented for the young but also for the elderly, the icon of a musical style now partly gone, and supported solely and only by him, it is precisely this perhaps, the characteristic that people were looking for in Lemmy. They were looking for support, a solid point to believe in. That icon, and especially the musical style and the legacy he carried with him, was extinguished on the morning of December 28, 2015, due to multiple tumors, one in the neck and one in the brain, and another particularly aggressive one, in the prostate.

Obviously, one might have expected some sort of tribute, and this tribute will be revealed as the CD/DVD "Clean Tour Clock", a recording of the concert held in Munich on December 20, eight days before Lemmy's passing.

What immediately strikes the ears is the production, perfect, and it manages to perfectly engage the listener. In every single piece, you can distinctly hear the energy emanating from Motörhead, but what leaves sadness in the soul of the listener is Lemmy's condition. Tired, with evident difficulties in singing, a voice that almost disappears under the fury of Campbell's guitar and the repeated efforts of the leader to reach vocal notes that particularly highlight the suffering Lemmy has in singing.

A live show, therefore, that is fully approved in terms of production, entertainment, and especially teamwork between Campbell and Dee. But sadly, what is to be criticized is the release of a live performance where Lemmy's performance brings tears to the eyes just by listening to it. If it had been a live show from a couple of years earlier, perhaps a live from the golden age of Motörhead, I would have agreed. But in my opinion, this is torture for the ears and the soul of those who grew up with Motörhead and who saw in Lemmy the figure of an immortal icon. But even if now the leader of the English group is gone, always remember:

"We are Motörhead, and we play Rock 'N' Roll!"