The first time I saw Alice Cooper was in 1986 on the "Constrictor" tour. He was 38 years old, so around his vocal peak. Cooper has never been numbered among the best vocal talents, he works well with the range he has, over the years his voice has gained more grit from aging. Now at 74 his sobriety and time spent active on the golf course are paying off. He stayed in good voice and pretty spry for the entire set of almost 20 songs. Granted some of these were done in a medley form where the band just kind of jammed out a riff or two from said songs, "Black Widow" being one of the most noted examples. When you have over forty years of music to pull from you obviously can play everything.
His band was not much different than the line-up I saw with him when he opened up for Maiden in 2012, which was the last time I saw him. The biggest change was the addition of Nita Strauss on guitar. She injected a great deal of enthusiasm and energy into the band. Everyone seemed to be having fun onstage. What surprised me the most was the interesting choice of a set list that leaned just as heavy on his late 80s early 90s albums as it did his 70s work. He played songs from "Constrictor", "Raise Your Fist and Yell", "Trash" and "Hey Stoopid". Seven songs total from this era vs nine from what would be considered his classics or greatest hits era. The staples "I'm Eighteen", " Under My Wheels", "School's Out" , "No More Mr Nice Guy" and "Billion Dollar Babies" were all accounted for. He only played two of his most recent songs.
Even after seeing him 5 times previous, I had never heard him play "Roses on White Lace" before from "Raise Your Fist and Yell" so that was a highlight for me. It made up for no "Welcome to My Nightmare" though that album had the most songs to make an appearance, granted as I mentioned earlier sometimes it was just a riff that they jammed off of its theme. I feel like this performance measure up well against his others, I went in with the faint worry at the back of my mind things might have declined in the past 10 years, but those fears were unfounded. If you get a chance to catch him this year, be sure to do so.
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