TORONTO - Vince Neil of Motley Crue did his best to set the tone.

"Motley Crue and Aerosmith ... how f---ing good is this?" Neil asked the crowd at the Air Canada Centre last night.

Well, at a certain level, several rows of empty seats seemed to suggest this retro double-bill wasn't very "f---ing good" at all, at least in a 2006 marketability sense.

But Aerosmith front man Steven Tyler is just so darned likable and charismatic, he partially saved what otherwise was a musty, wordy and mediocre show as the "Route Of All Evil" tour - with Aerosmith as the headliner and Motley Crue as the opening act - passed through Toronto.

This is Aerosmith's first tour since Tyler underwent throat surgery. Of course, given his raspy delivery, you probably could have predicted back in 1977 that he would end up having throat problems.

Anyway, last night he sounded pretty good. He didn't do quite as many of his trademark high-pitched squeals as he might have done 30 years ago, and he skipped a few of the high notes in songs like Love In An Elevator, but when he stuck to his normal range his voice was fine.

There was an amusing moment a few songs into Aerosmith's set, when Tyler handed his microphone to a stage-side patron who made a public marriage proposal to his girlfriend. As the stunned girlfriend gazed up at Tyler, he said coyly, "Hey, don't look at ME like that."

Leave it to Steven Tyler to bust up a marriage before it even starts.

Aerosmith and Motley Crue have embarked upon this tour in the hopes that their fans will continue to gaze at them, and especially listen to them, when both bands release new studio CDs early next year.

Tyler's antics and Joe Perry's guitar-god stylings notwithstanding, overall the show last night seemed forced, even when Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee sat in with Aerosmith for a song. The crowd was flat (especially during the Motley Crue set), and whoever you blame for that, it never is a great turn of events for purveyors of pop-metal.

Motley Crue's special-effects show was ambitious in a Spinal Tap kind of way, with everything from loud explosions (how 1980s!) to bondage chicks (timeless). That is more fire than we generally like to see in an enclosed building, however.

Motley Crue tried desperately to get the crowd excited, even though there isn't much left of Neil's voice, Lee has received far more publicity lately for his new band Supernova, and most of the songs sound the same, especially with the noise bouncing back and forth between the walls of a big arena.

"Come on, we can't even hear you," Lee complained at one point. But the only time the fans really seemed engaged was when they were encouraged to chant "happy f---ing birthday" to Lee, who turns 44 today.

Then at the end of the Motley Crue set, the bondage chicks presented Lee with a birthday "cake" that seemed to be shaped sort of like a, uh, female body part.

How sweet.