Nikki Sixx Is Hoping to Avoid Tears During Motley Crue’s Final Show

As the hours wind down toward Mötley Crüe's farewell concert tonight (Dec. 31), Nikki Sixx finds himself finally faced with the inevitable — and he isn't sure how he'll feel once the group gets up on stage at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

"We've been kind of dodging that question for two years and now there's no getting out of it," Sixx admitted to Billboard. "We're pretty rough-and-tumble dudes, but even the toughest guy going in for his last fight is going to feel a pang in his heart – and I'm guaranteeing that something's gonna happen up there that I don't know about and I probably don't want to think about until it happens. I just hope I don't cry during 'Shout at the Devil.'"

Sixx made clear, however, that those mixed emotions aren't about wanting to hang onto the past. In fact, having made it through the (occasionally dangerous) darkness that consumed him during the group's early years, he's thoroughly grateful to be where he is now.

"I was in turmoil for so long, to be honest with you, that I just thought that was life," said Sixx. "I was war-mongering, I was angry, I was like, 'f– you.' As the years have kind of chipped away at that, I realized that I was very well served by that, but it was not necessarily the best life to be lived. Becoming a father started to soften my heart, to be more open to who I was in the past and writing books and doing photography. It's just been this long, long life lesson. I don't think you ever quit learning, but I look back on it myself and it was a really rough patch for a long time."

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