Watch: MÖTLEY CRÜE Performs 'Take Me To The Top' For First Time In More Than Four Decades

MÖTLEY CRÜE played its first full headlining concert in nine months Saturday night (July 4) as the headliner of second edition of the Rockin' Thunder festival, which returned to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada's Princess Auto Stadium.

The band's setlist contained several rarities, including the first performance of "Take Me To The Top" — a song from MÖTLEY CRÜE's 1981 debut album, "Too Fast For Love" — since 1984, as well as rare airings of "Red Hot" (first time since 2013),"Louder Than Hell" (first time since 2015) and "Too Young To Fall In Love" (first time since 2015).

Presented by True North Sports And Entertainment and the Winnipeg Football Club, the Saturday-night rock show also featured three openers: Ontario rock band THREE DAYS GRACE, American rock act HALESTORM and Canadian rock Juno winner JJ Wilde.

MÖTLEY CRÜE's setlist for Rockin' Thunder was as follows, according to Setlist.fm:

01. Red Hot (first time since 2013)
02. Louder Than Hell (first time since 2015)
03. Wild Side
04. In The Beginning
05. Shout At The Devil
06. Too Fast For Love
07. Looks That Kill
08. Too Young To Fall In Love (first time since 2015)
09. Take Me To The Top (first time since 1984)
10. Primal Scream
11. Home Sweet Home
12. Guitar Solo
13. Smokin' In The Boys Room (BROWNSVILLE STATION cover)
14. Live Wire
15. Girls, Girls, Girls
16. Dr. Feelgood
17. Kickstart My Heart

MÖTLEY CRÜE's upcoming "The Return Of Carnival Of Sins" tour will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the band's groundbreaking 2005-2006 "Carnival Of Sins" tour and MÖTLEY CRÜE's 45th anniversary. The 33-city Live Nation-produced trek will kick off on July 17, 2026 in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania at the Pavilion at Star Lake and will feature support acts EXTREME and TESLA.

MÖTLEY CRÜE said that $1 from every ticket sold for "The Return Of Carnival Of Sins" will be donated to ASAP! (After School Arts Program) through the Mötley Crüe Giveback Initiative to fund hands-on arts programs for young people.

In a recent interview with Jon Smith of the 103.5 The Arrow radio station, MÖTLEY CRÜE bassist Nikki Sixx stated a possible setlist for "The Return Of Carnival Of Sins": "Obviously, we know the fans wanna hear the hits. And I hate it when a band goes out and doesn't play their hits. I remember [David] Bowie doing that, and he was one of my favorite artists. I was, like, I don't wanna go hear a bunch of C and D tracks off of records that I love. I wanna hear those songs, like 'Rebel Rebel', and at that point he was, like, 'I'm so tired of playing the same songs.' We're not tired of playing those hits, but we are excited about getting into a setlist and diving into some songs that we maybe never played or haven't played in a long time and shaking it up. And those type of things, if you're playing a song like 'On With The Show' from the first album, that's gonna dictate a lot of what production looks like. So, for us it's this moving creative ball of energy. It's super exciting."

In a separate interview with WMMS, Sixx indicated that setlist changes for "The Return Of Carnival Of Sins" were possible.

"A big part of the conversation is like, you know, obviously the fans want to hear the hits," he said. "But also, what can we bring in there [that fans haven't heard as much]? Like, there's so many cool songs."

"At some point here, we're going to get an opportunity to ask the fans, actually, what they [are interested in hearing]," he added. "We can kind of pick and choose through that and salt and pepper our set with some, you know, [deeper] songs. We just did the Vegas residency, and we've been playing 'On With The Show' and it's such a fun song. Some of these songs are really fun that not everybody knows. You know, 'Live Wire' was a breakout off our first record. There's a lot of people [who] didn't get into MÖTLEY CRÜE until 'Girls, Girls, Girls' or 'Dr. Feelgood'. They might have heard a couple tracks [from the earlier years]. So when you play something like 'On With The Show' and 'Starry Eyes', [it makes an impression].

"We haven't figured out the setlist, because the setlist will also dictate some things that we do with the show," he explained. "[But] we're really excited. This is the fun part for us. There's two parts, the creation of something that we're really excited to do, and then [we can't wait] to get it out there and play it for the fans."

MÖTLEY CRÜE's Las Vegas residency launched on September 12, 2025 and at Dolby Live at Park MGM and ran through October 3, 2025. The shows had initially been set for spring 2025 but were rescheduled after frontman Vince Neil revealed he had suffered a stroke around Christmas 2024.

In September 2025, Vince revealed that he had actually had a series of strokes before he suffered the "big one" in his sleep 2024 Christmas night, rendering him unable to get out of bed when he woke up the next day.

When MÖTLEY CRÜE originally postponed the Las Vegas residency, the band said it was because Neil needed a "medical procedure," but offered no further details.