In that column I wrote about other bands that used attention-grabbing devices to attract an audience. One example I used was Alice Cooper’s use of a guillotine to chop off his head during gory performances when he was starting out.
Well, after seeing a show during his latest tour I have to amend my use of the past tense when reporting on that melodramatic trick. Alice still includes his own decapitation as part of his current act. And that’s only a small part of the spooky pre-Halloween show.
In fact he cackled something about October being his time of the year.
Backed by exceptionally talented musicians, Alice’s spooky show features a two-level haunted castle set populated by a variety of creepy characters. Making occasional appearances are a bloody bride, larger than life versions of a creepy baby and Frankenstein’s monster, and a Jason-like hokey masked killer. At one point some creepy-looking insane asylum attendants come on stage to put the front man in a straightjacket.
Fortunately the theatrics didn’t detract from the music as Cooper performed almost all of his 20th Century hits and introduced some new tunes. Now in his early 70s, his voice still has the raw intensity it had back in the 1970s, although that night he got a little help from the band in hitting some high notes.
While I can still enjoy listening to AC’s recorded music without the scary visuals, I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the live spectacle. So could he actually do a show without the horror movie motif, relying only on the songs to keep the audience enthralled?
Maybe. But Alice is always going to be Alice so why not give the people what they still expect? And besides, it's still a really good trick.