The trashiest rock 'n' roll band in history?

It isn't the Stones, it isn't Led Zeppelin, not the Doors, Stooges, Aerosmith, Sabbath or GNR.

It's Motley Crue -- No. 1 in every category pertaining to sex, drugs and police blotter, four guys that cry out for that unprintable word and an "ing" to be dropped between Motley and Crue. Somehow they're still alive enough to have turned up at the Post-Gazette Pavilion on Sunday night.

Having survived 27 years, the L.A. band has now made it through the final show of Crue Fest, a gathering of groups that may or may not shop at the same rock-star accessory stores and tattoo parlors. The bands are all keeping a certain brand of vintage sleaze-rock alive in the era of ... I don't know, what is it the era of? Aside from the Crue, they were all club-level acts, which says something about either the bands, the genre or the budget for the tour, which drew around 12,000 here.

If you got there late you not only missed Trapt but the early call for Nikki Sixx. For his side project Sixx A.M., he turned the spotlight over to guitarist DJ Ashba and singer James Michael, a tall, lean bleached blond with colorful tats. The band was assembled for "The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack," the musical sidecar to Sixx's book, making some of the such songs as "Accidents Can Happen" sound like fractured pieces of a rock opera. Others, like "Tomorrow" and "Pray For Me," were simply good hard-rock singles. Michael got the crowd to sing along on the set-closing "Life is Beautiful," a good-vibes moment that would have had them all thrown out of Ozzfest.

Speak of that devil, Papa Roach busted out of Ozzy's inferno in the early '00s as a promising nu metal act. While the band may be spinning its wheels career-wise, Papa Roach hasn't lost its mojo thanks to highly pumped frontman Jacoby Shaddix. He brought a hint of rap-metal and that quiet-to-loud explosiveness that was so popular post-Nirvana. The crowd received "Last Resort" like it was a golden oldie. Shaddix's best trick was becoming one with the fans on "Time is Running Out," making it all the way up to the second section, where security let him break the rule about standing on chairs.

Nearly rivaling the Crue for sleaze was Buckcherry, led by Josh Todd, a pure adrenalin rock star who looks like Crispin Glover, sings like Axl Rose and moves like Iggy Pop. Buckcherry kept it simple with three distinct themes: sex, drugs and alcohol. "Too Drunk" dealt with how the third thing can prevent the first. Over a glorious wall of garage glam that would have scared Chuck Berry, Buckcherry got the crowd to chant "co-caine, co-caine!" Nice. Todd closed it out with a little kiss-and-tell, to put it mildly, on "Crazy B----."

During the set change before Motley Crue, there was a feeling of electricity in the air, as if we were time-warped to an arena in the early '80s. The veteran Crue hit the stage with "Kickstart My Heart," showing right away that millions of record sales buys a ton of lights and pyro.

Motley Crue has gone a lon-n-n-n-g way with a set of pretty dumb songs -- and the band can still play the hell out of them. It all starts with 57-year-old Mick Mars, who haunts the stage in a top hat -- like a creaky old ghost, playing guitar as if he made that deal with the devil. Although he barely moved, Mars powered the nasty blues-metal riffs on classics like "Live Wire" and "Wild Side" and he summoned demons from the strings on "Voodoo Chile."

Vince Neil, who's traded in the glam look for Southern-rock hellraiser, still runs around shrieking, occasionally breaking people's glasses with the high notes. He and the Crue focused on the dirty old hits, but did give "Saints of Los Angeles" a boost with singers from the opening acts, all bounding around the stage. "Shout at the Devil" was directed at George W. Bush, if the video screen is any indication, while "Same Ol' Situation," was a video orgy of sex and violence.

Tommy "Mayhem" Lee didn't do an upside-down drum solo, instead using his time for a "Girls Gone Wild" session with the video-cam, a staple of any Motley Crue show. The ladies seemed happy to participate and the dudes seemed grateful. Lee even handed out a bottle of Jagermeister for the crowd to share.

Now, that's a change for Motley Crue. In the old days, Tommy and Nikki would have drained that themselves in 10 seconds.