Location: Majano (Udine) / Area Festeggiamenti / Italy
Date: Thursday, 12.08.2010
Last Thursday, Alice Cooper kept up this summer’s run of above-average gigs by globally known names in our western neighbor’s backyard. He rolled into the little town of Majano with his whole caravan and the “Theatre of Death” tour. Majano sits south of the Alps and north of Udine, about an hour’s drive from the border. Alice Cooper’s musical journey has been a fascinating one over the years – humble beginnings under the wing of the legendary Frank Zappa quickly grew into a hugely inspired first half of the seventies, followed by years of musical experimentation, all the way to the commercial success of the second half of the eighties, which finally cemented his place among the rock icons. Alice Cooper’s venerable career and persona tipped the scales, so once again I made my way to one of his shows, where a proper spectacle unfolds on stage every single time and leaves absolutely nobody indifferent.
The sprawling “Theatre of Death” tour is now in its second year and has already stopped in plenty of places, both in Europe and across the Atlantic, and Rockline already treated you to a report from the autumn leg of the tour last November. Cooper is backed on tour by a colorful bunch of musicians: the guitar duo is Damon Johnson (Brother Cane) and Keri Kelli (ex-Pretty Boy Floyd), Chuck Garric (ex-Dio, ex-L.A. Guns) tames the bass, and the drum stool belongs to the one and only Jimmy DeGrasso (ex-Y&T). Even though this lineup has barely been together for a year, the experience and maturity of these players are more than enough for them to come across on stage as an incredibly tight, well-oiled, cohesive unit. They pull off the show without a hitch, exactly as befits their boss’s reputation – professional and theatrical enough to slot right into the Alice Cooper show concept.
Right on schedule, the sound of a school bell rang out. The intro to the hit School’s Out was followed, as if on a conveyor belt, by the rest of his classics, mostly from the first half of the seventies: No More Mr. Nice Guy, I’m Eighteen and the psychedelic Ballad Of Dwight Fry. In terms of building the stage story, the latter already delivered the first high point, because as the song faded out, horrifying apparitions seized Cooper on stage and dragged him to the guillotine, and its activation wrapped up the apparent first part of the show. That was only one of four death scenes in total that evening, with which Cooper nails the viewer (pardon, the listener) to the spot and whisks them off into a world of completely new dimensions, ruled by tense moments of struggle between Cooper’s character and the heroes of his songs, along with other fictional creatures, mostly of the sinister kind. Of course, the spotlights joined in on the visual feast too, and their lively light-show combos put an extra stamp on a show that was already packed with content. The theatricality of Cooper’s performance knows no bounds, the action on stage is lively from start to finish and follows the rhythm and message of the songs being played, and besides a heap of props that spread terror, the story winding through Cooper’s show also features a huge troll, nurses and a whole bunch of other helpers. The guitar trio of Johnson, Kelli and Garric stay fairly unnoticed during the stage action, doing their job off to the sides, but they step into the spotlight once the acted scenes are over, when longer instrumental parts without Cooper on stage usually kick in. The longest of these instrumental spots came with the “Welcome To My Nightmare” (1975) classic Black Widow, played without any vocals or backing vocals. The instrumental breaks and Jimmy DeGrasso’s drum solo surely did the tired body and voice of Alice Cooper good. At almost 63, he has an incredible amount of energy and stretches across the stage like a youngster, which is why Black Widow is tactically placed right in the middle of the set, to recharge his batteries.
The show is thoroughly polished and built on a long-proven tactic of an enticing mix of music and stage acting, and the horror flick that results works on the fans below the stage like opium. For years the backbone of Cooper’s repertoire has been made up of material from 1971-1976, with a few newer songs sprinkled in, so for a regular at his concerts, the excessive lack of originality in the setlist can be a slightly off-putting meal. Just a quick glance at the setlist of the European “Along Came A Spider” tour, on which he presented his new record two years ago, confirms the claim above.
After Under My Wheels (“Killer”, 1971), Cooper and his crew waved goodbye to the crowd with their arms raised and left the stage. Is something wrong? After all, barely an hour had passed since the start of the show. To the delight of most (but not all, hehe), the encore kicked off with the Italian tricolor in Cooper’s hands and the song Elected, and then School’s Out made a few thousand throats roar even louder, this time in the full length of the original. Despite the professional, flawless performance, I felt a lump in my throat after the show, because a set just one hour and fifteen minutes long is definitely too little for a ticket price of more than forty euros. Compared to the autumn leg of the tour, and the concert in Bratislava, it’s clear that Cooper cut the summer shows by seven songs, a full quarter of the playing time, so the audience can rightly feel shortchanged. Even if you squint and look the other way, you still have to admit that despite the merciless ticking of Alice Cooper’s biological clock, catching one of his shows remains a real treat, worth the trip for every music gourmet out there.
author: Urban Bolta
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist:
1. School’s Out (Part)
2. No More Mr. Nice Guy
3. I’m Eighteen
4. Wicked Young Man
5. Ballad Of Dwight Fry
6. Go To Hell
7. Guilty
8. Cold Ethyl
9. Poison
10. From The Inside
11. Black Widow (Jam)
12. Vengeance Is Mine
13. Dirty Diamonds
14. Billion Dollar Babies
15. Killer
16. I Love The Dead
17. Feed My Frankenstein
18. Under My Wheels
—encore—
19. Elected
20. School’s Out
