CrüeFest comes to Camden

There's so much good new clean dirt on Mötley Crüe that it's almost hard to remember the sex-drugs-rock-'n'-roll days of

The Dirt

, the band's notorious, and best-selling, 2001 memoir.

The flashy band that defined the lurid allure of Los Angeles' glam-metal scene in 1981 has recently found its members being interviewed by Larry King and Greta Van Susteren on TV and doing reality shows in which its singer gets plastic surgery (Remaking Vince Neil) and its drummer hangs with high school majorettes (Tommy Lee Goes to College).

That's kinky stuff, but not the sort of rock-out ideal that made Crüe a favorite of strippers and head-bangers.

Perhaps all the band needed was a night out with the boys - like Buckcherry, Papa Roach, Trapt, and Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx's side project, Sixx:A.M. Which is what they got at Saturday's sold-out CrüeFest at Camden's Susquehanna Center.

Tommy Lee did his schtick, breaking out his roving video camera that found breast-baring women of all sizes, and playing drums as sloppily as ever. But it was hearing the Crüe's patented brand of debauched metal at full tilt that made you smile.

Vince Neil has perfected the high, whining screech he made famous in the '80s, the one that Axl Rose has done a pale imitation of since. Whether tackling the speedily chugging train of "Shout at the Devil" or Crüe's mighty mess of newer tunes, Neil's scuffed-up howl leapt fantastically above the fray.

Though suffering from a degenerative spinal disease, guitarist Mick Mars generated a fray of feedback and fuzz. He made the plinking guitar signature of "Same Ol' Situation" rounder and angrier, and made the lusty ambience of "Saints of Los Angeles" hum like the helicopters that famously hover over the city, spraying for Medflies.

Mötley Crüe created a powerful and sensual vibe of spiritual decadence - what Jim Morrison meant when he sang of "fantastic LA."

Not so fantastic were Crüe's openers. Sixx's ploddingly industrial Sixx:AM was OK, but bland. (His girlfriend, tattoo goddess Kat Von D, was more entertaining at the soundboard.)

Trapt sounded turgid. The punk band Papa Roach was painfully dull, though it had a few decent call-and-response moments.

Only Buckcherry was rousing, with its take on haunted garage rock lined with bluesy, slide-guitar runs. Singer Josh Todd comes across as a likeable mix of vintage Steven Tyler and Rick Springfield, even if hearing that hit ballad "Sorry" was enough to give me a headache. And did.