Alice Cooper Wrap Up Part Two.

Yes I should have written this half sooner, but I really didn't want it to be over....sob sob!

Anyway back to Friday night and Alice.
The lights came back up and the band have come out on stage and I'm peering at the stage looking for the Great Man himself.
He appeared from up the back of the stage in a cloud of smoke, and started singing Department of Youth (one of my faves!). I was soooo excited! It was ALICE COOPER LIVE!
Unfortunately this lasted all of about thirty seconds and everything became a little vague, nothing seemed quite real and I started to think I was merely imagining it this lasted through till ???? I remember I section of No More Mr. Nice Guy and bits of Dirty Diamonds what else I may have missed I'm a little unsure.
But by Lost In America (another fave!) I was kinda over that lapse and I was enjoying myself aside from the fact that I thought I would vomit any minute - not pleasant.
I can't put into any exact order that the following songs came in, I had a few vague seconds along the way. My vagueness was as conquered as my devil hat was finished.
But there was Feed My Frankenstein (my absolute fave), Only Women Bleed - but just before this was something from his Welcome To My Nightmare album the name of the song exactly escapes me, Poison, I think the Black Widow was in there somewhere, I'm Eighteen (another fave), Under My Wheels, and there were others either I wasn't familiar with them or I was vagueing out.

I did a lot of vagueing out, usually along the lines of OMG it's Alice Cooper! That's Alice Cooper down there!

The music aside, his daughter (I'm guessing it's the oldest one) was his dancer on the show, when she first came out she was in black and had a long black cape. She chased Alice, swooped her cloak over him and then back open again and he was gone - I suppose it would have been a dampener had he not been.
She came back later for Only Women Bleed, when they had been setting the stage up during intermission they had been placing body parts in various places on stage. One of these was a torso and head with blonde hair, during OWB it moved and stood up and it was his daughter doing her dancing bit. And, actually the song from Welcome To My Nightmare was after this because Alice stabbed her and then these guys came on stage and put him in a straight jacket and his daughter gave him a few good kicks before disappearing off stage.

This was followed by Balled of Dwight Fry (How did I forget this earlier? It's tied in first place with Feed My Frankenstein for all time fave), towards the end of this song Alice got out of the straight jacket and the two guys came back to get a hold of him. Then we got a guy who looked a bit like a hunchback, and Alice's daughter back wearing a short black cape over her red outfit and with what looked like a devil mask from where I was sitting (someone else's seat, did I mention the guys sitting to my left disappeared during intermission and never came back?).

The hunchback is saying "Citizens what shall we do with this man? Shall we burn him?", there’s a resounding NO and the devil creature is shaking her head.
Hunchback "Shall we electrocute him?", this was followed with another resounding NO and more shaking of the devil creature's head,
Hunchback "Shall we introduce him to the guillotine?”, resounding YES and the devil creature is nodding and miming laughing.
Over to the left of the stage was this large tomb stone looking object with a angel on top, but an Alice angel so kind of skeleton with wings, which is none other than the guillotine! How cool is this? I was highly impressed - but thinking back I remember seeing some people earlier when everyone was arriving had children with them. Small children, I didn't see the smallest there though. My mother told me she saw one very little one being carried out in it's dressing gown sound asleep at the end of the concert.

Anyway back on topic, Alice gets his head cut off. First the hunchback holds the head up and waves it around and then the devil creature gets a hold of it and she's running around stage with it and showing it to the audience. Now during the Feed My Frankenstein song Alice started putting a body together in an upright coffin to the right of the stage, (I know I'm going backwards now but the brain seems able to process everything if I start at the end and work back.), I was amused to notice he had difficulty getting the arms on at first. Then he changed sides and they seemed to go on all right then. But it didn't have a head.
Back to the devil creature she's holding the Alice head out to the audience and then snatching it back and holding it close sort of "Mine!" and then she takes it over to the body and puts the head on top.
Then she starts bowing down to it, like Wayne and Garth "We aren't worthy" style. Then the body comes to life, and it's Alice back and he chases the devil creature away.
Which was all very cool, body's coming to life and stepping out of a coffin, I so have to figure that one out for a Halloween. It'd be so excellent!

I don't remember what the first song after he came to life was but it was followed by Poison, then we had another song not sure really what it was because I was distracted by Paris. Hee hee, poor Paris. What was even funnier was to see Alice strutting around stage with a little bag with a little stuffed dog in it. He had the walk down rather well.
And that was it, he introduced his band finished and the lights came back up and there was a mass exodus again and I got a chance to see some more of the interesting people. The guy in the top hat who was in the paper Saturday. Quite a few of the guys had the black paint around the eyes a la Alice. Why didn't I think of that?

All in all, it was absolutely excellent! The ticket was worth very cent; it was so worth all that time waiting. In future I'll remember to wear shorter heels, buy a seat on the flat, take a baggage wrangler and learn some deep breathing techniques and mantras along the lines of "I will not vague out, I will not vague out".
My only regret, yes I do have one. Is that there was only one concert! I'm going to buy a lotto ticket and see if I can't get lucky or really lucky and become a groupie and follow the tour all the way around the world.....If only!

Until next time,
Suzi.
A bona fide red head who's already missing Alice and damn sad because of it.