MY NIGHT WITH ALICE COOPER

I have tickets in hand to see Alice Cooper later this year.  I saw him once before  ...

8 June 2011

The headliners I should say at the outset were Def Leppard. More later.

There was an early and thoroughly so-so opening set from Thin Lizzy, who appear intent on remaining their own tribute band despite an earlier showing this year which had left me wishing they would ditch the Phil Lynott backdrop and record some new. Someone from Snow Patrol who wasn’t Gary Lightbody - you know, the other one, whattsisname - joined them for ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ and threw some slightly fey and very unconvincing shapes. This was the highlight.

As the house lights went up roadies scurried across the stage setting up the rig for the second opening act, Alice Cooper. Not ordinary roadies I might say, but roadies dressed head to toe as skeletons. And indeed no ordinary rig. The backdrop is a decaying gothic castle, there are giant grey hospital screens behind which lurk who knows what. Life size dolls and strange blinking equipment apparently liberated from Dr Frankenstein’s laboratory are scattered across the stage. Finally a huge front cloth bearing Alice’s panda-eyed visage is hoisted into place. I came with no expectations, but this looks like fun ...

The lights go down ... and the voice of Vincent Price booms across the arena. A blatant rip-off from Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ surely, until you realise Alice recorded this in 1975. The curtain falls and the band kick into ‘Black Widow’. Three guitarists and a bass player strung out across the stage, but all eyes are on Alice Cooper singing from atop a giant black silk draped pulpit dressed as a giant spider.

There is no let up. ‘Billion Dollar Baby’ sees Alice stalk the catwalk scattering dollar bills from a rapier that he wields like an Olympic champion.

‘Cold Ethyl’ makes her appearance - a life size doll dragged across the floor, subjected to all manner of indignities but still faring better than the heroine of the song, killed, frozen and brought out for - ahem - special occasions.

A quick change into a white lab coat and, pausing only to fire up the lightning machine, ‘Feed My Frankenstein’ is the cue for a 15ft tall Alice/monster to emerge from the wings, swatting the guitarists like flies. ‘No More Mr Niceguy’ and ‘I’ll Bite Your Face Off’ need no explanation. ‘Poison’ is a reminder of what a great pop sensibility the man has, and allows an incredibly tight band to stretch out.

The skeleton roadies appear and from behind the screens pull ... the guillotine! Forced to kneel, Alice is publicly executed and the severed head paraded before the baying crowd before it is tossed carelessly into the wings.

But, he's not really dead! Returning in a sequined tail coat and top hat, he is the tacky politician seeking your vote to get ‘Elected’. Complemented by ticker tape and balloons the effect is a Primary Election Rally in a gay disco. “I know you have had your problems in Belfast! Frankly ... I don’t care!” he cries as he bursts the balloons with a handy rapier. It’s a refreshing change, to be honest.

And as any great showman knows, you save the best for last. A quick change into a demented Ken Dodd stove pipe hat and ‘Schools Out’ for summer. A seamless segue into ‘Another Brick In the Wall’ and back again brings the house down.

This is a big, dumb, poptastic rock show. Old-style. No screens, no lasers, no auto-tune. Just great songs, a crack band, and props that I suspect wouldn’t have seemed high tech when Eisenhower was in the White House.

My only disappointment was that there was no sign of Alice Cooper’s snake. I am guessing he had trouble getting his python through customs, and which of us can say we’ve never had that problem?

Oh, yes, and Def Leppard? The chap beside me fell asleep. Enough said.

My Night In With Nick Kent (or The Worst Book I've Ever Read)

27 March 2010

I have read Nick Kent's 'Apathy For The Devil', so you don't have to.  You can thank me later, or send donations in lieu ...

"On the very eve of the 1970s, quite literally New Year’s Eve 1969, I kissed a girl for the first time. In Wales. It was a bit like Withnail and I actually. There was no sexual congress because I had to leave to speak to someone, although she did it later with a midget who had a beard. The next thing I knew I was living in London - the very fulcrum of the Zeitgeist pendulum - as it swung. As I once said to Jimmy Page, if you don’t live in London you’ll end up abandoning yourself to a world of small mindedness, bitterness and regret, churning out turgid prose in self serving autobiographies. As we shall see dear reader, as we shall see ...

As I said, it was 1971, and I loved music. How could I not, after all I’d seen the Rolling Stones in 1964, on the very cusp of the Zeitgeist. I loved to write, even though the interviewer at Oxford couldn’t see my potential. So I decided I would write about music. Because music isn’t just about the clothes, and the eyeliner and the drugs. Music is the now, or at least it was back then, before it all got crap. I still have the eyeliner though.

So anyway as I said, it was 1972, and I had just blagged a job with Friendz which used to be Rolling Stone, until the money ran out. To be honest it was a bit befuddled before I joined. But anyway Iggy Pop was my very best mate and I heard him and the Stooges sing lots of songs that no-one else has ever ever heard. Just me. And I decided to call it ‘punk rock’ for the new Zeitgeist. And I discovered Lou Reed was a bit fat and dull, but anyway I did proper cocaine with John Cale.

And then I took tablets just like the ones that Nick Drake took, but he died and I didn’t which means I’m better than him. I wrote that thought down on some paper and before anyone knew what was happening me and Porthos and Aramis were completely running the NME and raising the standards of rock journalism in a sort of Zeitgeist defining way. (I was D’Artagne, because he’s the pretty one, and David Bowie told me how pretty I was, before he became a coked up wreck). Before us the NME  was really all very befuddled. And everyone from before actually hated music and they all went mad eventually, a bit like Syd Barrett, who I also know.

And then I saw Can do their first UK show and they would later give me some heroin and then it was 1973. Except I went to Detroit and had some sexual congress, and some drugs. As well as being a bit fat Lou Reed isn’t very nice, he once made Lester Bangs cry, and Lester was really nice man. Then I went to L.A. and discovered that Brian Wilson is even fatter that Lou Reed!

And Iggy had changed; he was now called Jim. He could have been really really big if he had listened to me but he went off to Berlin with David Bowie and was never heard of again.

Chrisse Hynde was my girlfriend, and she was on the NME, because I gave her a leg up.  And the clap. But she ended up just working in a shop or something. When it became clear how better I was at writing stuff nobody at the NME liked me any more. But anyway they all lived in proper houses and not in squats with loads of guitars like me so it didn’t matter.

Music is all about the now but it’s also a lot about hair - the rooster-haired Rod the Mod, the pineapple-haired Ronnie Wood, and the electric-shock haired Richard Hell. My hair is a bit lank, but in a cool way so rock stars tend to like me a lot. Mick Jagger is not as bad as everyone says. People often ask Keith Richards what I’m like, but how would he know? It must be 20 years since I dropped him, and anyway he looks a cross between like Ray Reardon and a human fork that’s a bit dirty.

Then it was 1974 and I saw CSNY and they were rubbish. And that Joni Mitchell is well snooty; and anyway it’s not as if I even wanted to talk to her at that party.

So it was 1975 and Martin Chambers - or maybe Chrissie Hynde - begged me to get back together with him on the floor of Malcolm Maclaren’s shop. But I wouldn’t and there was a fight and although it is all a bit befuddled I do remember that I ended up starting the Sex Pistols. All they wanted to do was record Billy Fury songs so I left. Johnny Rotten really like Can. And Malcolm put my name on a list of bad people but mainly because I had better hair and knew Brian Eno.

Then in 1976 Bob Marley looked at me funny in a toilet which wasn’t very nice.

In 1977 I introduced Sid Vicious to his heroin dealer, because I’m the sort of a guy who will do anyone a good turn. Nancy wasn’t very nice though.

And then suddenly it was not the 1970’s anymore, mainly because Keith Moon and John Bonham died. Although I am glad to say that I had had the foresight to teach Paul Morely everything he knows, and he went on to become really huge on the TV and everything. So - in a way - I sort of set the tone for the Zeitgeist of the 1980s.

Oh, and I saw Bob Dylan and and the Hawks in 1966 too. 

And you didn't.